


The Wincester Gospel

by soulfulsam



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal, Angst, Bottom Dean Winchester/Top Sam Winchester, Canon Compliant, Could Be Canon, Developing Relationship, Drama, Drama & Romance, During Canon, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Male Slash, Novel, Oral Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Season/Series 05, Sexual Tension, Sibling Incest, Soulmates, Top Dean Winchester/Bottom Sam Winchester, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wincest - Freeform, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-06-26 16:26:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 192,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15666912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulfulsam/pseuds/soulfulsam
Summary: When Chuck is plagued for days with nightmares of Sam and Dean having a night of drunken sex, he tries to ignore them, and he definitely does not want to write them down - after all, he has visions because he's writing the Winchester Gospel; this nightmare couldn't possibly be part of that. But what the Prophet has seen cannot be undone, and Sam and Dean are left to deal with the fall-out of their forever changed relationship.This story begins in Season 5 shortly after "Fallen Idols" with a Wincestuous take that follows canon.





	1. Welcome to My Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters. Some actions and dialogue throughout the fic are taken directly from the show and aren't mine, either. The first 2 chapters in this story are inspired from an old story by Char & Brie called "The Gospel Truth." Enjoy!

Chuck awoke with a start, half hard and drenched in sweat. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked out the window of his shabby bedroom. It was still daylight. The alarm clock on the nightstand flashed 5:00 PM. He'd only been asleep for three measly hours. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and threw his hands over his eyes. He'd barely been sleeping lately and was exhausted, but after the nightmare he'd just suffered through, again, for the fourth time in so many days, he doubted he'd be getting back to sleep for a good, long while. This was probably the worst dream about Sam and Dean he'd ever had and no matter hard he tried it just was not going away. He groaned and slid out of bed. It was shit like this that made Chuck really hate being a prophet.

He hadn't always minded the dreams. The headaches that accompanied them were terrible, of course, but for years he'd thought that they just opened up his imagination; what other explanation was there for this interesting tale complete with compelling, fully formed characters that just seemed to write itself so effortlessly? And, even though his series about two brothers who hunted monsters never exactly flew off the shelves, it was still a great story if he did say so himself, even if he couldn't write it very well. But after his two main characters had just waltzed into his house a few ago, thinking about all the shit he'd seen them do over the past four and a half years went from being interesting to just creepy and awkward. The sex dreams were usually the weirdest part. It's not that Chuck minded having wet dreams; those weren't so bad. But having to watch two guys who were way better looking than him get to have sex with beautiful women was just unfair. And then there were the times when the sex was just disturbing, or so sad that he just felt sorry for them, like Sam's involvement with Madison and the grief that followed, not to mention the whole disturbing mess with Ruby, or having to experience Dean's long list of drunken hook-ups, some with probably more clarity than Dean had firsthand. But now, well, now this new dream had him yearning for those good old days.

Four days. For four fucking days this dream had been playing itself out in his head, each successive time the details just getting richer and more vivid. Chuck had realized a while back that his having a recurring dream usually meant that whatever he was dreaming about was important and needed to be written down. After all, he was writing the fucking Winchester Gospel. But somehow Chuck couldn't see this being part of the gospel, no matter how modern and… unique it was. Although he had seen the boys do some pretty surprising shit, he just couldn't believe Sam and Dean would ever have sex with each other. No way.

Chuck stumbled downstairs to the living room, grabbed the half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on his computer desk, and flopped down on the couch. He needed to get really, really drunk, not that it would help him forget, of course; the moment he passed out, he had a sneaking suspicion the dream would come back, and in even higher definition than it already was, as unimaginable as that seemed. Regardless of whether this dream was a prophesy or just some sick creation of his own imagination, it was disturbing. Even if the sex was good for them, and in Chuck's dream it certainly was, Sam and Dean were brothers. And straight. Seeing them together like that was more than a little distressing. He brought the bottle to his lips and took a swig of the bitter brown liquid one, two, three times while he considered his options. He couldn't stand one more occurrence of this dream. Writing things down usually made his dreams go away but they also often times made them come true. Although that was only prophesies and he was pretty sure that this wasn't one of them. He took another swig but the images continued to dance through his brain with increasing strength: Dean kneeling on the bed in front of Sam, holding one leg under each arm, driving into him and wondering what it would be like to be in Sam's place, both of them drenched in sweat, calling out each other's names as they both headed quickly towards climax. Chuck took another swig. Maybe when he wrote prophesies, it didn't make anything come true – maybe he was just...reporting on them. Maybe if he wrote this down – this dream, which was totally not a prophesy, but just some errant, persistent idea – it would help clear his mind and make the dream go away, and no one would ever have to know about it. He took one last hit from his bottle, got up off the couch, and carried the bottle over with him towards the computer. Hell, it was worth a shot.

He sat down in front of his computer and cringed at what he was about to write. If either Sam or Dean knew about this, he was a dead man. But it didn't matter because he was going to write the draft, get some sleep, and delete it in the morning and neither of them would ever know. And hopefully he would forget too.

In his dream, the boys had just come back from a hunt, excited and still pumping with adrenaline. Instead of heading out to a bar as usual, Dean broke out a bottle of Jack Daniels in the room and Sam, as he did on rare occasion, shared the bottle with him. Then Dean moved on to some tequila and after that the two shared a six pack. By then both of them were very, very drunk. More drunk than Chuck had ever been. This actually made sense as these conditions were the only ones where Chuck could even remotely see this…situation actually unfolding.

He wrote out the dream exactly as he had seen it for the past four nights without re-reading or editing. Sam would probably be a little sore the morning after. Yep, if either of them ever found out about this, he was a dead man. Dean's thoughts especially flowed to him in this piece and he found himself unconsciously writing phrases such as, "nothing would compare to the taste of Sam's skin." and "Dean would have preferred to be the bottom." Dean would have Chuck's head blown off with a sawed-off shotgun if he read that. It was a good thing he was never going to.

The words stopped flowing after "they woke in the morning, both sick with hangovers, the events of the night before blacked out from their alcohol soaked brains, and Sam wondered why he was naked in bed with his brother as he rolled over to grab the ringing cell phone on the nightstand." Chuck didn't read over what he had just written; that would be beyond a degree of weird. He saved the document as DO NOT READ and stored it away in a complicated series of folders. For now it would be best to have this story hidden as deeply as possible. He would decide once and for all what to do with it in the morning. For now though, it was midnight and in the seven hours he was writing he had managed to get himself drunk enough that he didn't trust himself to go up the stairs. He stumbled over to the couch and passed out.

When Chuck awoke, the sun was streaming through the tattered curtains and into his eyes. He groaned and tried to roll away from it. He hadn't had any more dreams and, for one blissful moment, couldn't remember why he was sleeping on the couch instead of his bed. But then, the memories trickled back too easily; he hadn't gotten drunk enough. Giving up on sleep, he stumbled toward the kitchen and went about setting up the coffee machine. Once it was brewing, his eyes flickered from the coffee pot to his cell phone on the counter. It probably wouldn't hurt to give Sam a call. Not that he thought anything was going on, of course. He was just wanted to…check in. Right before he deleted that word document. He probably should have done that last night. At least he had finally had a solid night's sleep for the first time in days. Sighing softly, Chuck picked up the phone, dialed Sam's number, and silently counted the rings.

Sam rolled towards the sound of the phone without opening his eyes, which he soon learned was a bad idea because his stomach did a massive flop and he sensed impending intestinal doom of epic proportion. Shaking his head and cracking one eye open, he heard the obnoxious ring tone again and wondered who the hell was plastered up against his side. Naked. Dean. Oh. Groaning, Sam flailed his hand about and grabbed his phone. His lifted it to his ear, "Hello?" heard nothing, looked down at the phone and squinted at it to push the connect button. "'Lo?"

Chuck swallowed and turned to his coffee pot and mug. Sam sounded like shit. Maybe he was sick. Probably sick. "Uh, hey. Hey Sam. It's me. Chuck. How's it going?" If Chuck sounded a little overly casual it was because it was still early and he hadn't had coffee. It had _nothing_ to do with the fact that he'd just written about Sam having sex with his _brother_ or anything. Cause Chuck basically didn't do that. Maybe he'd dreamed that too.

"Chuck?" Sam's throat felt sore and he scrubbed his hand over his face, trying to wake himself up. "Ugh, what – what time is it?" Sam squinted and tried to pick up his head to look at the alarm clock beside the bed but his head spun when he moved and he had to shut his eyes. "Oh God… my head..." He flopped back down on the pillow.

"Your... head? Ow shit," Chuck jerked as scalding hot coffee poured over the rim of his mug and splashed down off the counter and onto his foot. "Jesus Christ sorry, coffee... incident. Uh, it's – it's pretty early. Sorry. I just... Sam? Your head? Why does your head hurt?" Chuck's stomach clenched as he set the coffee pot too hard down into the sink.

Beside Sam, Dean rolled over slightly and slapped an arm across Sam's chest. "Fuck off," he growled.

"Dean, what the hell?" Sam looked over at his brother for a second, then quickly looked away at the ceiling. The blankets barely came up to Dean's waist, showing off a lot more of his brother than Sam ever thought he'd see while in bed with him. Oh God, what even _happened_? "Um Chuck, now's not a real good time." Sam tried to sit up, but his vision blurred, the room spun, and he suddenly tasted bile in his throat. "Oh god, bad idea." He moved his hand up to his pounding forehead and then he fell over sideways, dropping the phone and landing face first into Dean's stomach.

Dean awoke to feeling something hard collide with his stomach, followed by something soft tickling him. He tried to sit up but the agony in his head and stomach rioted against him, so instead he closed his eyes and reached his hand down to his stomach to feel whatever it was on him. He felt hair from what felt like the back of someone's head and wondered if he had picked up a chick last night. He couldn't readily recall the events of last night and the roaring pain in his head stopped him from trying very hard. But the girls he picked up didn't ever sleep over; it made Sam so uncomfortable that he refused to be in the motel with one of Dean's hook-ups. So if some chick was laying on his stomach this morning…

"Sam?" He quickly regretted shouting as he felt a loud ringing in his head.

Sam tried to respond but he was still getting a face full of his brother's stomach and all he managed was a muffled, "Dn."

"What the?" Dean's eyes shot open in confusion and alarm. Despite the ringing in his head and the gymnastics of his stomach, he quickly rolled Sam off of him and then cocked his head to get a look at him. When his eyes focused enough, he realized he was looking at his brother's bare hip. He quickly pushed up the blankets to cover them both. He wished he could have done more, but at that moment anything that didn't involve laying still, puking, or dying was definitely off the agenda.

"What the – how – Sam, why are you naked and in my bed?"

"My bed, Dean. We're in my bed." Sam winced and managed to slowly roll off of Dean and onto his back. He scrubbed his face with his hands for a second and then nearly went back to sleep until he remembered the phone. "Oh shit, Chuck! Dean, help me find the phone!"

Dean groaned in pain. "No Sammy, can't move. Tell him to call back later; when I have the strength I'm crawling into the bathroom to die."

Sam gave Dean a hard shove on the shoulder; too hard, in fact because instead of rolling him over a tad to encourage him to help look for the phone, Dean rolled off the bed, taking half the covers with him.

"Oh dude, sorry, I didn't mean to push you that hard." Sam was met with an answering groan that told him Dean was pissed off and in pain but didn't need any immediate attention. With the bed all to himself, he felt around for the phone. "Oh God, why does my head hurt?" He shifted his body to the left to more effectively reach out for the phone when he felt another pain, this time in a place he had least suspected. "Ow! Why does my ass hurt? Dean, what the Hell? What did you do to me?"

Dean lay on the floor, groaning loudly. "Didn't do anything," he mumbled into the carpet, "but now I'm gonna fucking kill you… just as soon as my head stops spinning."

Chuck swallowed hard. Dean sounded way too close to the phone and although he hadn't heard all of their discussion, he had caught some important words, like "naked," "bed" and something unpleasant about Sam's ass. Chuck was a dead man. Past dead. He shuddered to think especially of what Dean would want to do to him. Dean was already a little homophobic but now with his brother of all people…

Sam finally found the phone and brought it back up to his ear. "Chuck?"

"Um, yeah, S-Sam, I'm h-here," he stammered. "Um, hey, could you guys come to my house? I, ah, I think I need you guys, um, over here, I mean, right away…i-if you can."

Sam squinted, confused. "Right now?"

"Well, um, no…no, not right now, obviously s-since, since, you're…" he swallowed hard and shifted his weight a little from one foot to the other, "not feeling well. But yeah, as soon as you can I think you should come over."

Sam searched his mind for whatever would be so important that it would make Chuck so insistent and so obviously scared. "Is this about a prophesy?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, you could say that." Chuck had no idea why he was inviting his future murderers over to his house so he could explain exactly why they should murder him. "It's kind of important."

"Yeah," Sam answered, his voice thickly laden with sarcasm and frustration, "I got that." His stomach did a flip-flop and he knew he wasn't going to last much longer. "Ohgodgottagobye." He quickly punched the "End Call" button and then launched himself out of bed faster than he thought he could, only to trip over Dean on his way to the bathroom. Sam fell to the ground, his legs spread over his brother's back, his head mere feet from the bathroom.

"Jesus Sam, you want to die, is that it?"

Sam made no reply as he pulled himself off the floor and made a beeline for the bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet before a geyser of fluid shot out of his mouth. It tasted like straight liquor and bile and his throat burned as he continued to expel it from his body. He put his arm on the front of the toilet seat and then rested his head there. Well, that explained why his head hurt so much; he was hung-over. The most disturbing part of this was though that he had had so much that he didn't even remember drinking in the first place.

Despite having been tossed off the bed and kicked on Sam's way to the bathroom, Dean couldn't help but feel a little sorry for his brother. But right now he had much larger concerns: he had to vomit and there was no way he was going to make it to the bathroom. Thankfully, there was a trashcan nearby and he grabbed it just in time. He tasted copious amounts of what could only be straight tequila and felt relieved. He had been beginning to wonder if the two of them had been poisoned, but it turned out they had only been drinking. A lot. Probably even more than Dean ever had before; even completely wasted, he always remembered at least part of the evening. But last night, all he could remember was a big, fat ball of nothing. Although he had some distressing questions to answer, like why he had awoken in bed naked next to his brother, once again, right now he had larger concerns and couldn't trouble himself with it too much. Dean stumbled to his feet and made his way slowly to the nightstand where he grabbed two pairs of boxers. He put one pair on himself and then carried the larger pair, along with the full trashcan, to the bathroom. He threw the boxers across Sam's back.

"Here, Sasquatch; put these on."

He needed to empty the trashcan without disturbing his little brother. The bathroom was small and Dean had to carefully step over Sam's calves to get around him. The puke got poured out into the shower and then washed down with some water from the faucet. It was disgusting, but the shower had probably seen a hell of a lot worse. Sam let out a faint moan and Dean turned around to get a look at his little brother. He was sweating profusely and the ends of his long bangs were wet with liquor vomit, as were his lips and chin.

Dean walked over to the sink and filled up a small plastic cup with some water, then sidled over to Sam and handed it out to him. "Here, drink."

A memory flashed through Sam's head from last night of the two of them doing shots of whiskey from the same type of cups. Just the thought of drinking made Sam groan and puke just a little more. "No, no more."

"Come on, Sam! You need water. Just drink this; it'll help."

Reluctantly Sam took the cup and began slowly sipping the water. That was when Dean noticed the oddly shaped oval bruise on Sam's collarbone. He didn't remember him having that bruise yesterday morning when Sam had changed shirts in front of him. Not that he stared at his brother's body, of course. He didn't, not most of the time, so it could have been there before and he just hadn't noticed it. It looked like a hickey though and as far as he knew, Sam hadn't been laid in months, maybe even close to a year. But Sam had kept secrets from him before, so maybe he had and just wasn't talking about it. A quick glance down the rest of his body yielded no other bruises, no tell-tale marks as to what kind of trouble they might have gotten themselves into last night.

Even practically living on top of each other for most of their lives, once he and Sam had hit their teenage years, they had developed a kind of unspoken agreement about being careful to always wear at least some kind of clothing around each other, even if it was just a towel. They had still seen each other naked a dozen times or so over the years, but Dean, at least, tried to avoid it for a few reasons, not the least of which was that seeing Sam naked sometimes gave him odd, errant thoughts that made him feel a little nauseous, like the ones he was having right that moment: _wow, even leaning over a toilet, Sammy's looking good recently. I knew his arms were getting bigger, but that v cut of muscle at his hips is more defined than before. Looks pretty sexy. And – damn, Sam sure had grown a lot since he was a kid in, uh, every place imaginable. The ladies must like that. Guys too, if he's even a little into that sort of thing. Bet they'd probably like his ass, too, with those nice, perky, little, muscular curves – Sam's definitely been working out those gluts._ Dean quickly looked away from his brother, suddenly feeling supremely uncomfortable. He really wished Sam would just put on his boxers already. Dean clenched his jaw as that all too familiar nausea added to the already insufferable feeling of his hangover and he quickly made his way out of the bathroom, hurrying so much that he nearly tripped over Sam in the process.

"Going to bed," he growled.

"Dean."

Dean turned around to see Sam looking up at him pitifully. "Dean, help me up."

Sam held out his arms in front on him. Dean snatched the boxers off of Sam's back then grabbed him by the elbows and helped haul him up. Sam winced as he stood.

"You okay? You gonna be sick again?"

Sam looked embarrassed. "No, it's…it's just my ass. It really hurts. Dean, why does my ass hurt? What the hell happened last night?"

Dean let go of Sam's arms and held out his boxers, being sure to look over at the wall as he spoke. "Not sure, Sammy, but one problem at a time. Just put some clothes on." His brother put on the item of clothing while Dean made his way to the bed, flopped down and then opened up the nightstand once more to take out a white cotton shirt, which he threw on immediately. He lay down and brought the blankets up to his chin. "Get some sleep, Sam. We gotta sleep off these hangovers if we're gonna be any use later on."


	2. Suspicion

Sam woke up about three hours later, still feeling like someone was actively sawing his head in half with a nail file. He looked over at the other bed. Dean still lay under the covers but he was holding his hands over his eyes in a way that said he was very obviously suffering and not sleeping.

Sam didn't even bother trying to raise his head this time but he did manage to turn his face far enough to mostly face his brother. "Ugh, Dean, why did we drink so much? I haven't felt this sick since I drank that bottle of peppermint Schnapps with Tommy Sears in tenth grade and tried to surf down his basement stairs."

Dean groaned. "Not ever drinking again, Sammy. Not ever."

Sam fiercely wished he could believe that. Sam Winchester was never a big drinker. When he did drink, it was usually one beer, which he nursed most of the night or sometimes, when they were at the bar, used as a prop to add credibility to the drunkenness he faked for the saps he hustled at pool. Usually when Dean drank, Sam spent the night watching him out of the corner of his eye to make sure he didn't get into too much trouble, whether they were at a bar and Dean was getting sloshed and hitting on anything female in the room while Sam poured over their dad's journal, or they were in their hotel room and Dean was getting tanked while Sam did some research on his laptop or watched a movie. Most nights when Dean whipped out a bottle of something and stayed in the room, it meant it was going to be a sad night. On those nights, Dean was always drinking to forget something. What it was Sam never knew for sure, but there was a wide list of things for him to choose from: Hell, the apocalypse, the normal life with a wife and kid that Sam knew he secretly craved but could never have, his piss-poor excuse for a brother who lied and always let him down. On those nights, Sam waited, not allowing himself to go to sleep until Dean passed out so he could take off his shoes, roll him onto his side, and cover him with a blanket before going to bed.

Recently, these sad nights in had been happening more and more because, despite everything going on with the apocalypse, they were too busy trying to fix their relationship to be able to even think about fixing the world. They needed to learn how to function as a team, not as a bossy big brother who was pushing his kid brother around. They needed to try to build trust after Sam had chosen to go with Ruby and drink demon blood instead of sticking with his own brother. And so, while they figured it out, they were going on "practice runs," recently only tackling small cases: vampires, revenants, blood-thirsty pagan gods, and the like. Trying to break out of their old habits by thinking and treating each other differently was about a hundred times harder than just doing the job, so much harder that usually by the end of a hunt, the two of them would just collapse into their beds, thankful for it all to be over.

But last night had been different. The facts were slowly starting to come back to him in bits and pieces and he remembered some of the evening. Well, the beginning of it at least. They had just gotten back to their motel room after killing that revenant they'd been hunting and this time when Dean broke out the booze, he was happy.

"Come on Sammy, we gotta celebrate, eh? That was one hell of a move you pulled on that nasty son of a bitch" He smiled, beaming with pride as he poured whiskey into two cheap, plastic cups.

It was nice seeing Dean smiling again after so long. Hell, after their recent separation right after the apocalypse had started, it was nice to see him at all. Sam didn't feel right without Dean around, didn't feel whole. He knew Dean used to feel that way too, but he wasn't sure if that had changed. After all, if starting the apocalypse didn't change Dean's mind about him, nothing would. But none of that had mattered last night because Dean was happy and Sam couldn't help but smile too, as he took one of the cups out of Dean's hands and took a shot.

After that, it all went kinda dark. They kept doing shots of whiskey from their plastic cups, how many he wasn't sure. He vaguely remembered being upset about…something and they had some sort of conversation about it, he was pretty sure. At some point, he'd slowly run his fingers across Dean's matching tattoo. That was weird. Other than the occasional hug, They usually only touched each other if one of them needed to be patched up after a hunt, and even then Dean never let him touch him anymore than was absolutely necessary. So why had he been touching him last night? Then there was that troubling fact that they woke up naked in his bed together. Oh, and his ass still hurt. He was beginning to really not like the way the facts were stacking up.

"Chuck called this morning," he said suddenly, trying desperately to take his mind from his growing suspicions about last night. "Seems he had a prophesy that's got him pretty freaked him out. He sounded really skittish on the phone. Said he needs us to head over to his place right away."

"It's so important but he can't just tell you whatever the Hell it is over the phone? We're already knee deep in the apocalypse, how much worse can it get?"

Sam looked away from his brother and up at the ceiling, worried. This change in topic wasn't making him feel any better. He sat up slowly, ignoring the pain. "I'm gonna go get a shower."

Dean groaned and began to slowly roll off his bed. "Yeah, I'll make coffee."

Sam grabbed a change of clothes from his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and carried them with him to the bathroom while Dean lay on the bed in too much pain to feel motivated to really get up and make coffee. After a few minutes he heard the water turn on as Sam got into the shower. Dean reluctantly rolled off the bed and made the three step journey to the coffee pot. There was no faucet in this room outside of the bathroom. He just hoped Sam hadn't locked the door. He was lucky; the knob turned easily when he tried it and Dean stepped into the bathroom, opening the door a little more noisily than was necessary to make his presence known.

"Getting water," he grumbled loudly, as he put the pot down in the sink under the faucet, just in case Sam hadn't heard him.

Without thinking, Dean turned on the faucet, changing the water temperature in the shower from hot to scalding. Sam screamed in pain and Dean was unexpectedly confronted by a naked and soapy Sam, who had slammed the shower curtain to the side and leapt over the side of the tub. Then, in another instant, Sam foot slipped on the linoleum floor and he skidded straight into Dean, slamming his brother up against the wall.

At the moment of the sudden impact, Dean's mind flashed to Sam beneath him, body arching up into his touch as Dean moved his mouth over his neck and chest, lips sliding down smooth skin. His eyes quickly went to the hickey on Sam's collarbone and he felt as if he was going to be sick. Dean shot his hands up instantly in the air, not daring to touch his brother, and turned his head. Sam leapt back and grabbed a towel to put around his waist.

"Sorry, man. Hot water, really hot."

Dean did an about-face and nearly ran out of the bathroom, completely forgetting the coffee pot that was now overflowing in the sink. "Let me know when you're done with the shower, I'm laying down."

Sam turned off the faucet and barely jumped back into the shower, taking maybe another ten seconds to rinse off, before he picked up the coffee pot and his clothes, and followed Dean out of the bathroom. "Hey, I'm done. Why don't you get a shower and I'll –" The bathroom door shut before he could even finish his sentence.

Sam started the coffee and put on the clothes he had taken with him into the bathroom. When he'd slid into Dean, his mind had flashed to what was definitely a memory from last night. He had slammed Dean up against a wall in their room and kissed him, his lips hard and needy against Dean's mouth. Chances were, from the way Dean reacted, he was remembering the same thing. Sam hung his head in embarrassment and shame and scrubbed his hand over his face; he couldn't believe he had done this again.

It had been, what...three years since the last time Sam had gotten drunk in their room? It was back when they were hunting that murderous spirit in Connectiut who was trying to fight the sale of that one creepy doll-filled hotel by killing everyone involved in it. He'd emptied out the room's minibar one night. It was the only other time he could remember ever getting drunk while alone in a room with Dean, and, embarrassingly, he'd made a play for Dean then, too.

Looking back to that last time, Sam understood the getting drunk part; he was still learning to deal with the whole psychic crap, just found out that he was immune to some kind of demonic virus, and Dean had just told him that their dad had thought he might turn evil and have to be killed, and by Dean nonetheless. It was a lot to handle, especially when he'd already suspected that their dad was right. He also knew that when it came right down to it, Dean wouldn't be able to pull the trigger; if Sam died, and especially at Dean's own hand, it would destroy Dean. That part was also understandable: there was a reason why the workers at the hotel, along with practically everyone else they met, kept mistaking he and Dean for a couple: they were closer than brothers, friends, or even married couples. They were somehow irrevocably tied to one another, he could feel it, down to the very core of their beings. But as he'd sat alone in their little hotel room, downing one mini bottle of straight liquor after another, he'd become more and more sure that he would eventually turn and hurt someone and, if that happened, Dean would be the only person capable of killing him. Dean needed to do it; he'd beg him to if necessary. And when Dean had finally gotten back to their room, he had begged. And Dean had agreed. And as Sam had stared into Dean's face, the face of the person he loved more than anything in this world, the face of a man who had agreed to basically destroy himself to keep Sam from becoming a monster, Sam had felt such powerful, indescribably conflicting feelings that for some reason he'd grabbed Dean's face and moved in to kiss him full on the mouth. Dean's eyes had hardened the moment he realized what was going on. He'd shoved Sam's hands away and stepped back. The two of them never talked about it again. Sam had been thankful for it at the time. Talking about it would have meant exploring why he'd suddenly had had an overpowering and uncontrollable urge to kiss his own brother, and more. He'd wanted to show Dean how thankful he was and for Dean to show him that he accepted him as-is and thought of him as his Sammy, not as the freak psychic, or the monster he was destined to be. For some reason, he had acted upon those feelings with a sexual advance. Trying to think of the reasons why was not something he was ready to do.

Now, however, it occurred to Sam that talking about it might not have been a bad idea because, apparently, he'd done it again. Sam moved over to the nightstand to pack up his shirts. He wasn't going to think about it. He didn't exactly know for sure what had happened last night and he was pretty sure Dean didn't, either. There was no hard evidence of intimacy. His ass hurt, sure, but if he thought hard enough, he would be able to come up with some logical…and that's when he saw it. The bottle of lube was still open and sitting in plain sight right on the nightstand. Why neither of them had noticed it before he didn't know, but now it was the only thing in the room he could look at. Sam gulped hard and quickly looked down. More than anything in the world right now he did not want to know why that lube was there. He packed up his and Dean's stuff as quickly as possible, leaving only one change of clothes for Dean to wear just in case he hadn't brought any clothes with him into the bathroom. They were never going to see this room again, not ever.

It only took Dean a few minutes to shower. He was almost ridiculously focused on cleaning himself, using it as a way to block all other thoughts from his mind. When he stepped back into the main room wearing the boxers he had put on earlier that morning, he purposefully kept his eyes off his brother and began looking for his duffel bag. "Okay, feeling a little more human. Once we get food I think I will be okay to drive."

"Okay. I, ah, I packed up all our stuff; it's in the car, but I left out a spare change of clothes for you, in case you need it."

Dean snorted a laugh as he stepped into his jeans that had been laid out for him on the bed. "Sammy's getting all control freak on what I wear." He held up the green undershirt Sam had picked out for him. "Does this bring out my eyes?" he asked mockingly, still avoiding looking directly at Sam. "Seriously though, the motel on fire or something?" Sam looked down at the carpet and didn't speak. Dean cleared his throat nervously. "So, ah, you remember anything about last night?"

"No," Sam answered, a little too quickly. Dean shot him an inquisitive look as he threw on a black and white checkered button-down shirt. "I mean, I don't know. Maybe. I don't want to know." It was the damn bottle of lube, which Sam was pretty sure Dean was going to discover in about three... two... one...

Dean shifted his eyes over to the nightstand where Sam had accidentally looked shame-facedly for a second. The little bottle, his bottle, sat on the nightstand proudly upright as if it were mocking him, and things clicked together far too quickly for his liking. Heat shot up his body and he turned away sharply, eyes widening slightly.

"Oh."

His eyes darted up to Sam for a second, a look of shock on his face, before he cleared his throat and grabbed his gun from under his pillow, quickly shoving it in the waistband of his jeans. He'd just fucking replace anything if he left it behind. They needed to leave. Now.

"Let's get some food before I vomit bile," he grunted and bee lined for the door.

With one last look around the motel room, Sam took a deep breath before turning around to follow his big brother. Without thinking, he rubbed his ass for a second as he made his way to the car but, once he realized what he was doing, he quickly stopped. His ass was still a little sore, but he certainly didn't want Dean to know it; that was the last thing he needed Dean thinking about before they headed off together on a ten hour car ride. He hoped he had caught himself in time, but the guilty look on Dean's face as he stood next to the driver's side of the Impala while staring at the ground told him otherwise. Sam quickly made his way over to the passenger side and opened the door.

"Ready?" he asked in the most casual tone he could manage.

"Yeah."

They both got in the car. Dean nearly gunned it out of the parking lot and stared, a little too focused, at the road ahead. Sam looked over at Dean, who refused to look back, and sighed. It was going to be an awfully long ride to Chuck's.

The two of them sat in silence as they drove. Dean didn't even bother turning on the radio to try to make even a feeble attempt to ease the thick tension between them. They stopped at the drive-thru of a fast food place and got some greasy food in their stomachs to help with their hang-overs and ate silently in the car as Dean drove. Sam was wracking his brain trying to come up with a possible scenario of what could have happened last night that was contrary to his, and obviously Dean's, growing suspicions but was coming up empty. Two hours into the drive, he chanced another look over at his brother. Dean's face was an unreadable mask, stoic and completely devoid of emotion. Sam knew that look; it was the same look he had had for weeks after their dad died, every time he was in danger the year before he went to hell, whenever there was mention made of Sam having had sex with Ruby, the entire car ride to Bobby's the first time he found out Sam had been drinking demon blood. It was the look of crisis, of Dean's worst fears coming true, of feelings so horrible that he couldn't even use bravado and thick sarcasm to cover them.

Sam looked back towards the road and sunk down a little in the seat. The two of them were going to have to talk about this sometime, that was for sure. Earlier in the day he had been trying ardently to remember what had happened but now wished intensely that he could forget what it was he did recall and was afraid of touching Dean for fear that something even as small as a familiar touch might bring back some other hidden drunken memory he had stashed away in his brain. He knew Dean had to feel the same. They couldn't travel or work together like that, avoiding touches and eye contact out of shame and fear. Of course, knowing that led him to big fear number two, which was that Dean wouldn't be able to deal with what happened and take off. This theory seemed a little less likely, since Dean had gone into the future and seen what would happen if he and Sam ever left each other again. Then again, he was sure Dean hadn't considered the possibility of… this scenario occurring when they had both vowed to stick with each other. God, he couldn't even say the name of the act that the two of them had performed, how were they supposed to be able to talk about it? The two of them had…they, ugh, they had sex last night. With each other. And he'd bottomed. He'd either spread his legs or got down on his knees so he could take his own brother's dick up his ass. Shame and guilt swelled inside him, overpowering and terrible. His throat felt tight, heart racing, head spinning, and then his stomach suddenly lurched.

"Stop the car, Dean."

Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother but said nothing as he pulled the car to the side of the road. The instant the car stopped, Sam threw open the door and vomited on the asphalt. Despite the awkward, no-touching tension, Dean actually reached over and patting Sam's back softly and repeatedly, his protection instincts clearly kicking in.

"You okay, Sammy? Still hung-over, huh?"

Dean's hand felt comforting and nice and Sam wanted so badly to move over and hug him, breathing in his scent while Dean rubbed his hands all over him and ran his fingers through his hair. At that thought, the shame and guilt began to once again build inside him, flowing into him from every place on his back that Dean touched and he sat up and flinched away slightly, making Dean recoil instantly. He wiped his mouth.

"Yeah, still just a little hung-over." He looked over and saw that Dean was looking down at the steering wheel, looking dejected and he felt terrible. "Thanks though, for…pulling the car over and stuff," he added in an attempt to smooth things over a little.

Dean plastered back on his stoic mask and shifted the car back into gear. "Sure, no problem. Let me know if you're gonna puke again; I don't want any puke stains on my baby – er, the car."

"I knew you meant the car, Dean."

"Yeah, I know. What, a guy can't correct himself every once in a while? Come on!"

Sam sighed. This definitely wasn't going to work out between them if they didn't find a way to talk about it and move on. Thank God they at least were going to have a case to distract them for a little while as soon as they saw Chuck and he could tell them about this damned important prophesy.

.

Dean's knuckles were turning white as he gripped the steering wheel. He had been trying for the past three hours to shut down his brain and not think as he drove, way too fast, to Chuck's place. No matter what he did though, one word kept screaming in his head over and over again: _rape_. Although most of his memories from last night eluded him, enough had come trickling back to his consciousness throughout the day that, between his half-formed memories, his bottle of lube, and Sam's personal discomfort, he knew all he needed and way more than he wanted. He wasn't sure why he did it, but had hurt Sammy. It was no wonder Sam had flinched away from his touch; he should, and maybe even did, hate him right now for what he had done to him.

He had no idea how it could have happened, even with the two of them as drunk as they were, but it did and he was certain that, somehow it was his fault. Neither of them had gotten laid in a long time. Sam had been going without for much longer, but Sam always had a lot more self-control (and self respect,) than he. So, maybe he was just so hard up for it that he had gotten himself and his baby brother drunk and then taken advantage of him by pushing him for it and Sam, always a happy drunk and always willing to do just about anything for him, had complied. It seemed far-fetched, but no more so than waking up one morning only to find that you've fucked – that's right, fucked – your baby brother the night before and you have no memory of it. He still couldn't figure out why he had done it, though. After all, he wasn't into guys at all. Well, sure he did occasionally have dreams about having sex with Sam, or occasionally, other guys, like that actor from Dr. Sexy MD, but everyone had strange dreams every once in a while, he was sure of it. They had talked about it once on Oprah. It didn't make him gay. Even if he did sometimes wake up hard from those dreams and have to jack off. And sure, he did look at Sam sometimes when he was changing or getting out of the shower and admired how fit and muscular he'd become, as opposed to the scrawny, lanky, awkward kid he used to be. After all, the kid was beau…no, no, no, he was not going to finish that thought. Sam was Sam. He wasn't beautiful, or attractive, or sexy in any way. He was Sam. His little brother. And whatever happened last night, it didn't matter. The only way to deal with this was to push it down, never talk about it, and never ever be drunk alone with Sam again. They could go on with their lives exactly as they had before with only a little bit of fading awkwardness over the years.

By the time they pulled the Impala up to the curb in front of Chuck's house, it was nearly midnight.

"We're doing this now? Don't you think we should get a room and talk to him in the morning?" Sam asked, furrowing his brows in confusion.

"Nah." Dean knew Sam and, from the looks he'd been giving him all day out of the corner of his eye, he could tell Sam was going to want to get a room and talk about what happened. He was smart enough not to bring it up right away, but sooner or later he was going to try. And Dean wanted a case to work on as soon as possible so he could begin burying his feelings for Sam and the weird night they had shared. "He should still be up." He got out of the Impala and slammed the door. "You coming?"

Sam sighed. "Yeah, I'm coming."


	3. Runaway

Chuck was pacing in his house on hyper-alert when he heard the boys' car pull up outside. He was nervous as hell and still had no idea of what he was going to say. He was pretty sure Hallmark didn't make cards that said, "I'm sorry I wrote a prophesy about you and your brother having gay, incestuous sex and never told you about it; just please don't kill me." The doorbell rang and he tried to look as casual as possible as he opened the door and let the boys in. Dean brushed past Chuck, huffing out something that could have been a greeting before bee lining for the kitchen. Eyes widening slightly, Chuck watched Dean go then turned to Sam.

"Everything okay?"

Sam sighed as he watched Dean practically run towards the nearest bottle of whiskey. "Yeah, everything's fine, just had a rough day."

"Oh." Chuck gulped. "You – you wanna talk about it?"

Sam looked down at him, annoyed. "No."

Chuck ducked his head and scurried away from Sam, towards his computer. "Oh, okay."

Dean stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen behind him, a short glass full of whiskey in one hand while his other arm rested against the doorframe. "So, what was so important that Sam and I had to haul ass to get up here so fast? Angels and demons stuff again?"

Chuck was panicked. He should have been better prepared for this. "Actually, no. I- well, I had a vision…about you guys."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, so how is that new?"

He looked over at Sam with a 'what the hell' kind of expression, only to find that Sam wasn't so amused. He was clearly trying to hide it, but his eyes said it all; he was terrified. For a second, Dean was baffled why Sam would react this way, until the implications of what Chuck was talking about hit him. His face hardened in fury.

"Oh? What kind of vision, Chuck?" Chuck stared at him wordlessly and Dean stalked towards him. He set down his glass on top of the computer desk and backed Chuck into a corner of the room. "What kind of vision?" he shouted, the rage evident in his voice.

"Might I just remind you that, uh, if you kill me –"

"Just answer the question!"

From across the room, Sam saw Dean's hand move towards the waistband of his jeans and he moved fast, pulling at his arm and turning his body around to face him. He grabbed Dean and shoved him up against the wall.

"Dean, Dean, calm down. He didn't make us do anything."

Dean shuddered; Sam had done that before, specifically last night. Images of being grabbed by the arm, spun around, thrown against the wall, and tongue-fucked flooded his consciousness. He pulled away from Sam quickly, nearly knocking over a chair in the process.

"Damn it!" he shouted.

"Wait." Chuck took a tentative, small step forward. "You guys didn't actually…" His mouth dropped open in surprise. "Wow."

"Wow?" Dean barked out, "Wow. Thanks to you, our lives are collapsing in around our ears and all you have to say is 'wow'?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't actually think –"

Dean took a menacing step towards Chuck, his eyes full of murder. "What, you didn't think that when you have a vision of, of," he faltered for minute, "of something this awful happening that you needed to pick up the phone and at least give us a damn warning?"

Sam felt a slight pang when he heard Dean say the word "awful" for one irrational second before he caught himself. Dean was still slowly advancing towards Chuck and he reached into this waistband once again and pulled out his .45 caliber Colt pistol. Sam grabbed his elbow but Dean tore it out of Sam's hand and turned on his heel to face his brother.

"Come on, man, why the hell are you so freaking calm, huh? Aren't you just as upset and pissed about this as I am?"

"Sure, I'm upset, but I don't think shooting anyone is going to make this any better. And, don't forget, Chuck is on angel watch. You shoot him and Raphael is here in a second and that's the last thing we need."

Dean gave him a hard stare for a moment, the first time all day that they had looked into each other's eyes. Dean's were full of indignation, rage, shame, guilt, and fear, but he was relenting. He knew Sam was right. He put the gun back into his waistband and Sam stepped in front of him before his brother decided to do anything else stupid.

"Okay, Chuck." He was trying to make his voice as level and calm as possible. He was sure he was giving Chuck what Dean had so often referred to as "the puppy dog eyes" but he was just trying to look sympathetic towards the scared, small man in the room. "How long have you been seeing this prophesy?"

"About three or four days." His voice slid and cracked as if he was going through puberty as he spoke.

"Okay. Have you had any more visions since?"

"What, of that? No!"

"And why didn't you tell Dean and me about this?"

Chuck threw his hands up in the air. "I thought it was too preposterous! I never once thought that it was actually real. When I wrote it down –"

Dean broke in. "You – you wrote it down?"

Chuck straightened, realizing that was the wrong thing to say. "I'm sorry! I'd been having the same dream over and over again and it was driving me crazy! I thought maybe if I wrote it down that the dream would just go away and I could erase it later…"

"Wait." Sam's eyes furrowed in confusion. "You still have it?"

"I – uh…" he threw his arms up as he shrugged, then slapped the sides of his thighs. "Mmhmm."

"Jesus, why would you keep something like that?" Dean roared.

Chuck ran past them, scurried behind his computer desk, and began quickly typing on his keyboard. "I have this weird thing about not throwing things out, I don't know. I thought if I buried it in a series of complicated folders that it might help, but it didn't and now I'm not exactly sure where it is. But I'm sure I can find it if you guys, you know, want to read it."

"No!"

"Yes!" The boys shouted out contradicting answers simultaneously.

"Okay, right, bad time, we'll come back to that later."

Dean ignored Chuck and shot Sam a half-crazed, incredulous look. "Come on, you don't actually want to read that!" Sam looked away, turned from his brother, and headed towards Chuck. "Seriously man, I don't think that's a good idea; there's no way knowing anything more about this is going to lead to anywhere good."

"And what exactly do you suggest we do, Dean? Bury this and never talk about it again? 'Cause we've been using that method today and we can barely even look at each other!"

"You're just not giving it enough time!"

Chuck grabbed the nearest bottle of liquor and scurried towards the stairs to avoid being a part of the fist fight that seemed to be inevitably coming. "I'll just leave you guys alone."

Sam and Dean watched him run up the stairs and out of sight before turning once again to each other. "Right, and how much time are we talking here? Weeks? Months? Years? We don't have that kind of time, Dean; we have the apocalypse to deal with right now! We don't have the luxury of being able to avoid each other or give it time. We separate and Lucifer gets to me, right? But if we don't separate and let this thing hang over our heads then you know we're not going to be able to work together like we should because we're too distracted with our own shit, and then one of us screws up on the job and we both die. That's the reality, Dean, that's why we have to deal with this now before it blows up in our faces or the angels or demons find out and find a way to use it against us!"

Dean was out of arguments. Sam had a point. It didn't matter. He turned from Sam and headed for the front door.

"Where the hell are you going?"

"Out." He opened the door then turned to Sam and pointed at him. "Don't you dare read that thing." The door closed with a slam, followed by the roar of the Impala and Dean was gone.

At first, Dean drove off with no destination in mind except escape but it didn't surprise him when, without conscious effort and in very little time, he had managed to steer his car to a bar. He headed towards the building quickly as if it promised salvation from all his ills and the promise of whiskey inside was Holy Communion. He sat down on a barstool near the corner and immediately ordered five shots of whiskey. The bartender smiled at him flirtatiously and walked away to get his drinks. She was cute; tall and leggy with a cascade of medium length brown hair, but not his type. He usually liked girls to be more than an inch shorter than himself. She came back with the bottle and shot glasses, taking care he noticed, to swing her hips with a bit of a flourish with each step as she came towards him. She looked at him like she was famished and he was a steak dinner. He tried a polite smile for a second, realized it wasn't working for him, and then scowled at the countertop.

"Rough day?" She poured the shots and set the bottle down on the counter next to him.

He took his first shot. "I guess you could say that."

"You wanna talk about it?"

The events of the day shot through his consciousness and he quickly gulped down shots two and three to chase them away. "Not really, sweetheart." Sick fuck. He was a sick fuck. He quickly poured shots four and five down his throat and then gestured to the empty glasses. "'Nother, please."

She filled the glasses, her expression remaining unchanged except for a raised eyebrow. "You might want to take it easy there or they'll be carrying you out of here."

He downed another shot. "Nah; I'll be fine." The bartender shrugged and walked away, taking the bottle with her.

Shot number seven slid down his throat and the drink no longer burned. He was quickly on his way to getting drunk and for once it wasn't helping him bury his problem; if anything it was fueling his guilt, making him worse. _Sick fuck! Faggot! You didn't just dream about fucking your baby brother, you actually bent him over and did it. He was drunk and you took advantage of him. Rapist! Faggot! Sick fuck! And now he's going to leave you just like everyone else, you fucking loser. Baby gonna cry? Baby sick faggot gonna cry?_

He downed shots eight, nine, and ten and then called the bartender over. She looked at the empty shot glasses and seemed impressed. "And you're still conscious! You want another?"

He flashed her what he hoped was a seductive smile. "Nah, I'm good. Hey, what's your name?"

"Amanda."

"Well Amanda, I'm Dean. Wanna get out of here?"

She whistled. "You cut right to the chase, don't you?" She eyed him up for a second. "The bar closes in half an hour. Why don't you stay and you can help me lock up?"

He looked around. "Well, I'd say it looks like there's a lot to do and, sure, I'd love to help."

She filled up one of the empty shot glasses. "Next one's one me."

He watched her sway her hips as she turned to wait on the other patrons and couldn't help but smile when she immediately announced last call despite there still being a half hour until closing time.

After the last patron left and she closed up the bar, he watched her standing at one of the tables collecting beer bottles before he quickly approached and fiercely attached their mouths. He grabbed her sides and set her down roughly down on a table, content to have sex right there, but she pushed him away. She preferred to go somewhere away from the two huge, storefront windows and led him to the pool table in the back room. Dean was more than a bit drunk and not particularly aroused but still couldn't help being ridiculously needy as he grabbed her thighs and gruffly set her down on the pool table. The bartender seemed to enjoy his urgency, probably mistaking it for attraction. It wasn't; Dean liked sex to be slow and sensual. This neediness of his was completely out of character and that he couldn't seem to help it just made him feel pathetic. It didn't matter though, because he was determined to go through with this. He was a man, a real man, who fucks women, not some cock-lover. And he certainly wasn't into Sam. Sam, who he used to heat up ravioli for after pulling him away from "ThunderCats" and take care of for weeks at a time whenever their father was off on a hunt. Sam, who he would constantly reassure that the monsters under his bed weren't real, and even if they were, Dean would shoot them for him with the .45 he kept under his pillow, loaded with silver bullets.

And so, after setting the bartender down on the pool table, it was after very little foreplay that Dean stroked himself a few times to get hard enough to slip his condom on and then climbed onto the table and drove into her. She gasped, moaned and pulled at his hair as he pounded into her. He went at a feverish pace, feeling that with every thrust, he was pushing further and further into the past what he'd done to Sammy. The sex didn't last long, maybe ten minutes, before she let out a silent cry and gripped onto his shoulders as her body tensed and spasmed, her orgasm tugging around him. She smiled and let out a contented chuckle, then let him go and stretched out on the table, looking completely relaxed. He hadn't come yet but didn't want to keep going, either, so he slid out of her and off the table.

"That was great," she breathed.

Dean rolled the condom off his still erect penis and tucked himself back into his jeans. "Yeah, thanks." Without another word or glance in her direction, he threw the condom in the nearest trashcan, walked to the front door, unlocked it, and walked out into the cool night air.

.

It was 6:00 A.M. and Sam was asleep in one of two queen-sized motel beds when Dean stumbled in loud enough to accidentally wake him up.

At first Sam didn't even bother stirring much as he mumbled, "have a hard time finding the place?"

"Nah, Sammy. First motel in the yellow pages, as always, when you wanna be found."

Dean's speech was so thickly slurred that it was almost impossible for Sam to understand him and that's was when he began to worry. Sam squinted as he looked at his brother. "Dude, look at you; you're a wreck! Where have you been all right?"

Dean smiled a sloppy grin as he plopped down on the other bed and began to untie his boots. "Let's see…bar, banged the bartender, strip club, banged a stripper, then I had time on my way back and banged a couple 'a hookers,"

Sam's brows furrowed in worry. "What's going on, Dean?"

Dean had his boots off, well mostly; one boot was off and the other was unlaced but hanging halfway off his foot, although he hadn't seemed to care or notice. "What'ya mean, Sam?"

"This is some pretty hard-core self-destruction, even for you."

Dean snorted as he lay himself out on the bed, still in his clothes from the night before and with the boot still dangling from his foot. "Dunno what you're talking about; I'm fine."

There were a lot of things Sam wanted to say to his brother at the moment, such as that he clearly was not fine, that this was the most messed up he'd ever seen him since the year before he went to hell, and that he understood being freaked out about what happened the other night, but they had to talk about it because he obviously wasn't dealing with it. After all, Sam was freaked out too but no one saw him trying to get AIDS or die of alcohol poisoning over it. As he watched Dean flash his ridiculously fake, cocky smile and lay down on his bed while still completely dressed though, he knew that in his brother's current state at he would get nowhere trying to talk to him. Dean turned over onto his stomach and closed his eyes and, like that, he was out cold. Sam sighed and walked over to the bed. He removed the boot, rolled Dean onto his back to unbutton and remove his over shirt, then rolled him onto his side. He threw the shirt across the room; it reeked of cheap perfume, beer, and sex.

Dean and his whores; he was always banging someone cheap, whether it be some random bar slut, or actually paying for it from some stripper of street walker. Sam never understood why his brother had such low feelings of self-worth that he was constantly willing to just give himself over to anyone with a pulse. After all, Dean was worth so much more than that. He may have always been banging cheap and dirty but he wasn't cheap and dirty. He deserved to be with someone who would give him loyalty, devotion, and unconditional love. But Dean rarely found that and never went out looking for it. Thinking about it now, he wondered if it wouldn't be a bad idea to go get himself and Dean tested. If they now shared an STD, it was Dean's; Sam hadn't had sex in almost seven months. He was also almost certain they hadn't used a condom the other night when they had…Jesus Christ, it was so wrong! Never in his life did Sam think he would be pacing around a motel room while hoping to god that his brother always practiced proper condom safety so he wouldn't have to worry about getting an STD from him. Their lives were so messed up.

He forced himself to stop pacing and sat on his bed, watching Dean's face as he smiled and licked his lips in his sleep. Probably dreaming about strippers. His brother was so confusing. What was fun or sexy about paying someone to take off their clothes or have sex with you? It was so much better when they did it for free because they wanted to, wanted you. Just you. Like Jess had.

Even after all these years, he still felt pained thinking about Jess; after she died, he knew he would never again find that kind of love with another woman, not living the life he was anyway. In fact, he was fairly certain he was never going to get another shot at a settled down, committed, long-term relationship in his lifetime. On the other hand, with the way things were going, it was very likely that he was going to die young anyway, probably very soon. Death was just an occupational hazard when trying to stop the apocalypse. So, for however long he had left, it seemed the only person he was going to be waking up to was Dean.

When he thought about it though, spending the rest of his life with Dean felt peaceful, because the longer Sam lived, the more he realized he couldn't live without him. It was why Sam was always so willing to do anything, include sell his soul, just to keep Dean around: Dean was home. He'd always been there, though all the new schools, unfamiliar motel rooms, the bullies, and all the heartbreak Sam felt when he'd gotten settled into all of it only to have to move again. Whether he liked it or not, Sam had never belonged anywhere else, not even at Stanford with his new friends and amazing girlfriend. Back then he'd tried to run away from his home to the point that he'd even stopped answering Dean's phone calls. He'd known that that was the way it would have to be if he really wanted to strike out on his own, because he felt that longing, the need to be with Dean, to be home, even when listening to his voice as he left him messages over the phone. If he talked to or saw his brother again, it would be too easy to let himself be dragged back into the life. And in the end, after almost four years of holding out, Dean had come and gotten him to come away with him on a hunt, and he hadn't even needed to try hard to do it.

Sam still remembered the argument they had had after Dean rudely broke into his and Jess' apartment in the middle of the night and then hit on his girlfriend right in front of him. Sam had known, of course, by the way Dean was acting that he wasn't actually interested in snaking Jess away from him; he was just jealous that Sam had chosen her and Stanford over him. That was why he had chosen not to deck Dean over being such an ass; instead they left the apartment and argued over important stuff, like the fact that Dean just expected him to ditch in the middle of the night for no damn good reason. Sam knew just as well as Dean their dad wasn't in trouble, and he also knew he was using his disappearance as a lame excuse to hide his real agenda.

Fortunately, it didn't take long before Dean started talking about his real problem: Sam's so-called apple pie life, the fact that he'd run away. Never mind that Sam was just going to college and finally getting a shot at normal, or that the last 3 years were the first time in his life he'd actually felt safe. Through all the cocky bravado, Sam could see the hurt, pleading, and fear inside of Dean and he hated that Dean had to feel that way, but Sam had resolved to stay strong. He couldn't leave now when he was about to graduate, get a full-ride into a graduate program, and marry the most amazing woman he had ever met. Logically, he had every reason to stay and not a single one to go. Unfortunately, he hadn't been prepared for Dean to do the one thing he rarely ever did: break down and tell the absolute truth.

"I can't do this alone," Dean said.

Sam gaped at him in genuine surprise. "Yes you can." If their dad wanted to be found, he always figured out a way to reach them. Out of all the things Dean could've needed help on, this wasn't even close to one of them.

Dean hung his head. "Yeah," he paused for a moment, as if deciding if he really wanted to say what he was thinking. "Well, I don't want to."

And that was when Sam broke. It had been as easy as that. Easier, really; his resolve had been crumbling since the moment he had seen Dean's amused, cocky face grinning at him as he had him pinned down on the floor his own kitchen. So he had gone away with Dean. And Jess died because of it. At the time he thought it was because he had been too weak to keep his resolve, just pick one life and stick with it, and because of that Jessica had died when he could have stayed and protected her. Now he was beginning to think he was because he had strayed from home.

Sam rubbed his eyes. That thought didn't make any sense. If she had died because he was meant to be with Dean, then that meant he was meant to spend his whole life without a girlfriend, or any love or companionship outside of Dean. That had to be wrong. Maybe the problem really was that he hadn't had enough sleep and was becoming delirious. It was 6:30 A.M. and he had only slept two hours. He lay back down under the covers and resolutely closed his eyes. He was going to bed before he had any more crazy, disturbing thoughts. And later they were going to Chuck's to pick up that damn story.


	4. I Dream of Sammy

Sam wrapped his long, muscular arms around Dean's waist and pulled him in for a kiss. Dean happily fell into Sam, letting their clothed chests meet and his hands fall to either side of Sam's stomach. Sam's kiss was soft and gentle and his lips were supple and warm, just as Dean had always imagined they would be. He rucked up Sam's t-shirt and felt the warm muscled skin of his back as he held onto him tightly. Sam's hands grabbed the backs of his thighs and then slid up to cup his ass, but the lingering kiss remained dry and chaste. It wasn't enough; Dean had spent so long wondering what Sam's mouth tasted like, imagining what it must feel like to have his tongue in his mouth, what his 5 o'clock shadow felt like scratching against his face. He slowly ran his tongue against the smooth skin of Sam's lower lip and Sam moaned softly as he opened his mouth wide, allowing Dean to easily slide his tongue inside. And, just as he'd always imagined, Sam mouth felt good: wet and warm with just a hint of the mint mouthwash he used before bed. It was perfect.

Dean slid the tip of his tongue over Sam's, slowly caressing it and teasing it out of his mouth. Sam slipped his tongue inside Dean's mouth and moaned when Dean lightly sucked it. As they kissed, Sam's hands left Dean's ass and traveled under his shirt and up his back, grabbing handfuls of muscle and hot skin. Sam growled into his mouth and gripped him harder, his kisses getting harder and more insistent. His hands slid down Dean's sides, grabbed Dean's hips, and held him in place so he could grind up against him. Dean could feel the beginnings of Sam's erection through his jeans and it made him moan softly into Sam's mouth. He couldn't believe that Sam wanted this, wanted him, and he could make Sam hard with just the feel of his lips and body through clothes. Sam broke the kiss and moved his lips along Dean's jawbone, tenderly sucking at his skin as he laid soft, affectionate kisses along the way. He moved down to the bottom of his jaw right where it met his neck and sucked just hard enough to make it feel like his blood was rising to the surface before he darted his tongue out, swiping it around the spot in a circular motion, slow and teasing. Dean moaned a little louder and quickly felt Sam's erection grow rock hard even through all their layers of clothes. He pulled back and rolled his pelvis away from Sam's just enough to slip his hand over the front of Sam's jeans and cup his hard length. Sam let his head fall back and gasped.

"God, Dean, yeah, just like that. I love it when you touch me. I want your hands all over me. Want _you_."

Sam's voice was both pleading and low with arousal and Dean felt a wave of pleasure course through him. He wanted to touch Sam's swollen flesh underneath all the layers of denim and cotton more than almost anything he had ever wanted in his life. Hands working quickly, he unzipped Sam's fly, slid a hand inside his boxers and eagerly wrapped his fingers around Sam's silky smooth, steel hard shaft. He gripped the hard flesh firmly and stroked, making sure to twist his wrist every time he stroked the head, working Sam's cock the way he liked to handle himself.

Sam moaned. "Oh, Dean."

Oh fuck, was it hot to hear Sam say his name like that. Dean's mouth moved to Sam's throat as he stroked him, feverishly kissing him in every place he could find bare skin. He worked Sam's cock until it began to drip, leaking onto his hand and he knew Sam was probably less than a minute away from orgasm. He took his hand away and looked at the small bit of pre-cum glistening on the webbing between his thumb and forefinger before he licked it off, curious to know what Sam tasted like. It wasn't bitter or strong like he feared, just musky and salty. Sam groaned at losing Dean's hand on his cock, but Dean was all over him instantly, shaking hands moving to unbutton Sam's shirt.

"Shh, no, it's okay, I got ya. God Sammy, fucking want you so bad, wanna see you, wanna get to look at that gorgeous body." He stopped undressing Sam for a moment to rub his hands down Sam's chest while leaning his face in close to his neck to inhale his sweet, salty smell. "Mmm, you're so beautiful, so fucking beautiful."

Sam didn't respond with words but Dean could hear the quickening of his breath and feel the acceleration of his heartbeat and knew how turned on Sam was by his words. He smiled to himself; so Sam liked the sexy talk. Well, he could definitely keep talking that way to Sam.

He moved his hands from Sam's chest and once again shifted his attention to Sam's shirt buttons. He pressed his lips to Sam's ear. "God Sammy, you make me so hot, I'm so fucking hard for you right now. You have no idea what you do to me, how sexy you are."

While Dean worked his way down Sam's shirt, Sam unbuttoned his own jeans with a quick flick of his wrist and they fell to the floor. Sam wasn't wearing any underwear and his huge, flushed erection bobbed taut and proud before him. Dean couldn't help but stare at it as it twitched before him and little driblets of pre-come leaked from the head. His hands went back to finish unbuttoning Sam's shirt and then pushed it back over Sam's shoulders, letting it fall from his body. He gave Sam a long appraising look, lingering over the perfect muscles on his chest, stomach, arms, and thighs and the huge, taut, flushed erection standing between them. Dean quickly threw his t-shirt over his head, then undid his pants and had barely stepped out of them before he felt Sam's bare chest against his, arms once again wrapped around his waist. Dean slammed his hips against Sam's and rubbed their bodies together, moaning as he felt the friction of their cocks rubbing together.

"Oh fuck Dean! I want you, want to fuck you right now. I want to know what it's like to feel myself inside you, want to make you come for me. God, please let me fuck you, Dean, please!"

Dean growled. It was a kink he didn't even know it had, but, Jesus Christ, Sam was so hot when he talked dirty to him like this. "One thing first, Sam, one thing I want to try. I want you in my mouth." Sam didn't exactly respond with words, but by the way he shoved his hips forward hard into Dean's, he figured it was okay. Dean smirked as he slowly worked his mouth down Sam's neck to his collarbone. "You like that, Sammy? You want me to do that for you? Want me to suck you nice and slow?" He reached down and once again began stroking Sam's hard shaft.

Sam was clenching his jaw and tightly shutting his eyes, visibly close to the edge and trying to stop himself from coming. "Yes," he managed through gritted teeth

Dean smirked and took his hand off of Sam, who was so aroused that his skin was beginning to flush, and let him cool down for a few seconds. Even with the threat of this whole thing being over way too early though, Dean didn't give Sam very much time; he'd been curious about this and had wanted to do it for so long. He couldn't wait to get his mouth around him as he moved his lips down slowly over Sam's perfectly sculpted pecs and abs, feeling Sam's breath hitch as he worked his way down to –

The heater, which was positioned right next to Dean's bed, kicked on and startled him awake. It took a few seconds until his head cleared enough for him to realize where he was. At first, all that came to him were overpowering feelings of happiness and lust. Why was he so aroused? He was in his hotel room, in bed, with the lights out. But he was sure that just a second ago, he had just been doing something else, something fun. And the lights had been on. He was standing over by the door, no… kneeling, about to – holy shit! Guilt and shame flooded his consciousness as he realized what had given him his massive erection. Why did it have to be Sam? He had just had sex with four women. No, scratch that – he had had sex with four women without being able to get completely hard or come once, but he was about to blow his load after coming back to the motel and having a sexy dream about his little brother. He was so painfully hard that it bordered on blue balls; he was literally about to come while having a dream about sucking his kid brother's dick. He looked over to his left. Sam was laid out beside him, on his stomach, fast asleep and completely unaware of what a sick fuck his brother really was. Dean decided that he shouldn't take care of his aching hard-on; he deserved blue balls and a lot worse. He deserved to never have sex again. He lay there for a while, unable to fall back asleep because of the pain in his balls. It actually felt kind of good, like a penance for wrongdoing. After an excruciating half hour the pain began to subside, so he settled back down in his bed, closed his eyes, and willed himself to go back to sleep.

Sam was sitting on the bed moaning like a whore as Dean's head bobbed slowly back and forth between his legs.

"Dean." He whispered his brother's name in between pants and moans. Then Dean flicked his tongue over the head as he sucked and it prompted a wave of shouts and breathy exclamations. "Oh god, f-feels so good, just like that! Mm, Dean, I love it when you suck me, s-so good, you know exactly what I like!"

Dean couldn't deep-throat Sam so he was using one of his hands to massage every inch of him that couldn't fit into his mouth. With the other, he reached down and began stroking his own cock. God, he loved doing this. He couldn't think of anything he enjoyed more than making Sam happy. Sam's hips were moving back and forth ever so slightly and Dean could tell that he was using every ounce of restraint he had to not thrust upwards and make Dean gag. A steady stream of pre-cum started leaking out of Sam's head that tasted so –

He was tangled up in sheets. Why – son of a bitch! How many disgusting fantasies can a guy have in one night? His stupid dream had just picked up from almost exactly where it had left off. And now he was hard again. He scrubbed his hand over his face as he lay in bed. He was so going to Hell…again. This wasn't by far the first time he had gotten aroused over a sex dream about his brother, but it never bothered him so much before. He had always been able to reason that it was because he hadn't gotten laid in a while, that his body was responding to something that just felt good and not the fact that it was Sam, that it was just a dream and it didn't mean anything. But now for all he knew he was dreaming about actual memories, and that was just too much to take. Screw it; he wasn't even going to try laying back down. In fact, if things kept going this way, he may try to never sleep again. Quietly, so as not to wake Sam, Dean grabbed his still unpacked duffel and headed into the bathroom. A shower would do him good. He was going to shower, get dressed, grab breakfast for himself and Sam, and then they could put this town in their rearview mirror.

The water from the shower pelted down on him and felt good on his skin. He felt filthy after stumbling around strip clubs and back alleyways all night. He turned the knob on the shower, making the water as hot as he could without scalding himself. The heat was doing wonders for him as it slowly worked out tension in his shoulders that he didn't even realize he had and he felt himself relax under the spray. Then he felt his cock start to grow and stiffen he looked down at it in amazement. Jesus Christ, did that friggin' bartender slip an aphrodisiac into his shots or something? He couldn't walk around like this all day, getting random hard-ons that could possibly embarrass him at truck stops and diners, and that's only if they spent the whole day just driving around.

He wrapped his hand around his cock and closed his eyes, scanning his mental library of fantasies and looking for one that would do the trick. Mm, there were the Doublemint twins from a couple of years back. That had been the best three-way of his life. The two of them had been all over him. Although they had made out a little for him, they were clearly only interested in him and not each other because they were…sisters. Oh, right. Suddenly that night felt less sexy and more wrong. Very, very wrong. At the time, the idea of being with a set of twins had been hot because he thought he was fulfilling what was supposed to be every guy's fantasy. But they had – they were sisters! One of them had watched while he – god, he couldn't even imagine watching while Sam – oh great, now he'd brought Sam into it. Well, that was one fantasy effectively ruined.

What else…ah, that waitress in Omaha, she was pretty hot. She was a petite little blonde thing with long legs, a tight little ass, and a nice, perky rack. They'd gone back to her place and all he'd seen of it was the bedroom. They'd practically raced there, immediately dropping whatever pretext she had used to invite him over and had quickly got down to the sex. He thought about how she had unzipped his jeans with her teeth, slow and sensuous while looking up at him in a way that almost begged for permission to suck him. He loved it when he was with a woman who surrendered complete control like that.

As memory broke off into fantasy, his imagination filling in gaps that he could no longer remember, however, her looks began to change. Long blonde hair turned to brown, went from curly to straight, and then from long to short. Hmm, Dean liked the changes his mind was making; she was actually hotter that way. He bit his lip and changed the fantasy to feeling her body beneath him, tight, hot pussy around his hard cock as he drove into her, nice and slow. His cock was now steadily leaking pre-cum and as he became more and more aroused, she suddenly stretched out taller beneath him, all long legs and strong muscular arms, her breasts flattened out into large, muscular pecs, and when he looked down at her face again, he was looking at Sam. Flashes of his dreams raced through his head and a mixture of guilt, fear, excitement, shame, anger, and arousal rushed through him like an electric pulse. No! No, he wasn't thinking of Sam like that. He couldn't think of Sam like that. Dean redoubled his efforts and willed his mind to another woman, and another, but each and every time without fail, every girl would eventually turn into Sam.

Dean's wrist, not to mention his cock, were starting to ache from trying to jerk off so long and he eventually gave in. His last attempt had been Lisa and there he was breaking out the big guns. Not only had the sex been some of the best and most limber of his life, but she was the only woman he could see committing himself to and having a family with. Thinking about sex with her wasn't just physical, it was almost spiritual. He thought about her beneath him, rising up into his touch as he caressed her face and nibbled affectionately on her ear. But when he pulled away and looked her in the face, he once again saw Sammy, this time looking almost angelic with the love and happiness that danced across his features. With that, Dean gave up trying. He imagined Sam's legs raised in the air as Dean slid in and out of him, facing his blissed out face. He ran his fingers through Sam's soft, silky hair, then bent down and kissed him softly on the lips. He heard himself murmur 'I love you,' against those soft lips and heard Sam moan and now thinking about this, his cock was really reacting. He was enjoying this way more than he ought to. Actually, he oughtn't to enjoy this at all, these thoughts were supposed to be foreign and sick to him, not familiar and comforting and like he was coming home for the first time. He felt a tear run down his cheek as he fisted his cock faster and faster, quickly racing towards orgasm. In only a few seconds flat, he was crying so hard that he was afraid he would burst out into sobs, while at the same time he was feeling heat building up in his belly and his balls pulling up as his body tensed for orgasm.

"Oh, God," he whispered right before he felt his knees weaken as a powerful orgasm shot through his body, painting the front of the shower white.

He slid to his knees and covered his face in his hands. He just wanted to die. He should die. What kind of fucked-up pervert wanted to do such unspeakable things to his closest family? He was so weak. Sam would be better off without him, well, as long as he didn't say 'yes' to the devil. But how was he supposed to stop that? He couldn't even help himself. He looked over to the razor sitting on the lip of the tub and it felt tempting. Could he die? Would the angels even let him die?

A loud knock on the door brought him out of his reverie. "Dean, dude! How long are you going to take in the shower already? You're using up all the hot water! If I have to take a cold shower this morning, I'm gonna kick your ass!"

Dean cleared his throat to make sure it didn't sound all weepy and womanly. "Almost done, Sam!" he called out in a voice that was still a whole octave lower than normal. "Be right out!" With that, he stood up, turned off the water, and only briefly looked at the razor one more time before toweling off, grabbing his clothes, and heading out of the bathroom.

He hadn't expected Sam to be standing literally right outside the bathroom when he opened the door, so he nearly ran right into him before he could stop himself. He ducked his head and quickly sidestepped.

"Sorry," he mumbled to the carpet. "Go ahead."

Sam gave him a loud, weary sigh and disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.


	5. Pulling Teeth

Sam didn't plan on spending very long in the shower. He was almost certain Dean had used up nearly all the hot water and in any second now he'd be standing under a frigid cascade that would give him hypothermia as he tried to wash himself. It really sucked because when he was in the bathroom, it was the only time he could be alone and away enough from his brother to give him time to think. As he lathered shampoo through his hair, he contemplated whether or not he should tell Dean that he'd gone to Chuck's this morning while he was in the shower and picked up the story. Chuck had been standing outside his house when he pulled up and merely nodded at Sam as he handed him the two copies of the story, already stapled and collated. No words had passed between them during that interchange. Sam was too afraid to ask about the latest vision Chuck had undoubtedly had, so he just twitched his face into what he hoped was a smile, grabbed the pages, and got the hell out of there.

He rinsed off the shampoo and grabbed the conditioner. Dean was too freaked out to even look at him now, meaning the situation had deteriorated even further. He wondered if Dean was beginning to remember more about that night, maybe even everything, and wasn't telling him. If he approached Dean about it now though, he betted that conversation would end very, very badly. He was behaving more and more like a caged, cornered animal. Whenever he got his hackles up like this, Sam knew it was best not to push him, lest he lash out in any way possible.

He grabbed the bar of soap and began running it over his body. Maybe he shouldn't push him right now. If it bothered Dean enough, he would eventually come to Sam in his own time when he was ready to talk about it. And whatever was going on, whatever he remembered, Chuck had obviously had a vision in which they both agreed to read the story, hence the two copies (Sam was only going to ask for one,) and there was no sidestepping Chuck's visions; they'd already learned that all too well. In the meantime, he would try to have Dean's back and hope for Dean's professionalism during hunts to prevent them from being killed. What other option did he have?

The water was getting cold and Sam hadn't washed his legs or rinsed off yet. The temperature dropped from hot to tepid to freezing cold in a matter of seconds and Sam involuntarily let out a yell as what felt like a rain of ice suddenly began to pelt his naked body. Goddamn Dean, using all the hot water! He hurriedly washed his legs and rinsed off the soap and conditioner before turning off the water as quickly as he could and jumping out of the shower. He expected to be met with a smirk and a stupid joke by Dean after having heard his scream, but surprisingly Dean was instead sitting at the desk by the window and poring over Sam's laptop with a look of utmost fascination on his face.

Sam shot him a disgusted look. "Dude, I told you, no looking at porn on my computer."

Dean shifted in his chair looking annoyed but still wouldn't meet Sam's gaze. "Not looking at porn. Looking at a case."

Sam stopped and stared. "You? You're looking at a case?"

"Am I speaking a language you're not getting?"

Dean's voice was thick with frustration and sarcasm and it made Sam double back. "No, it's, uh…what's the case?"

"Well, according to this article, a teenage girl was babysitting some ten-year-old boy in the suburbs. She was found by the parents dead, head so scratched up her brains were showing. The alarm was never tripped and the kid says she never left the house. They're calling it a wolf attack. Looks like something worth checking out, don't you think?"

"Um…" Sam was still getting over Dean doing research when he didn't have to. It was a big adjustment. "Great, yeah, sounds like our kind of case."

Dean shut the laptop a little too hard, closing with a hard slap, then jumped out of his chair. "Great, let's grab some breakfast and head out."

Sam wished he could say that the drive to Alliance, Nebraska was awkward. Awkward would have been tolerable. No, this was more like an unspoken dare from Dean to remain silent on pain of death. He had started the ride trying to talk, not about last night, or getting tested, or Chuck, but he only got as far as, "Dean," before Dean popped a tape into the Impala's cassette player and Metallica blared through the speakers at a volume that Sam was sure would make him deaf in a matter of seconds. He felt like the music was reverberating through his skull as the lyrics shouted at him: "I'ma gonna make you, shake you, take you, I'ma gonna be the one who breaks you, put the screws a to ya, yeah, my way, yeah come on, come on, come and make my day…"

He couldn't figure out what could have happened between when he and Dean went to sleep at 6 A.M. and now to warrant Dean suddenly being so pissed off at him but at this point he knew if he asked all he would get in return would be a hard punch to the jaw. Sam turned the volume down from earsplitting to just loud and sat sulking in the passenger seat the whole way.

By the time they finally got into town and checked into their motel, Dean looked as if he was about to stab the first thing that came near him, Sam included. Sam jumped out of the car and raced to the office before Dean could swagger over and scare someone with that homicidal grimace he was sporting.

The girl behind the counter smiled sympathetically at Sam as he entered the office. "One king or two queens?"

"Two queens."

She nodded knowingly. "Yeah, your boyfriend looks pretty angry, I wouldn't want to get into bed with that right now, either."

Sam sighed, feeling more agitated than usual at this common misunderstanding but he kept his voice level to be polite. "We're just brothers."

Her eyes crinkled sympathetically. She smiled sadly at him and shook her head 'no.' "Of course. I'm sorry."

Sam grimaced at her and rolled his eyes. He was in no mood for her pity over his supposed homophobic self-denial. Sam grabbed the credit card out of his wallet and slapped it down on the table. She took it, entered the information into her computer, and handed him two keys. "Room fourteen. I hope you and your brother have a pleasant stay."

Sam grabbed the keys without another word and huffed out of the office. He cautiously walked up to the Impala where Dean was sitting on the hood, still looking angry but in deep, contemplative thought. He lightly smacked Dean on the elbow, handed him his room key and the two of them headed into their room. The two men continued their silence as they changed into their suits and left the motel, heading towards their next case.

As they pulled up in front of the hospital, Dean's face was hard and impassive, all business. He got out of the car without waiting for Sam and opened the trunk to grab two silver knives. He handed one to Sam and gave him a hard look, as if warning him not to turn into a girl and get all weepy about his feelings in front of the hospital staff. Sam rolled his eyes at him, wrenched the knife from his hand, slid it into the waistband of his pants, and walked ahead of Dean into the hospital.

When they found the coroner, the two of them flashed their badges at once in a motion so perfectly identical that it looked choreographed, just like they had a million times before. Dean spoke in his usual authoritative voice as he said, "Agents Page and Plant, FBI," and Sam found comfort in the familiarity of it. While they were on the job at least, Dean seemed to so far be holding it together.

Holding it together, however, became a bit harder for Sam when the medical examiner lifted the sheet to show them Amber Greer's body. She had claw marks on the right side of her head so deep that there were several giant holes in her skull. Sam and Dean both grimaced in horror and disgust at the sight and Sam cleared his throat to keep himself from gagging. No matter how many dead bodies they had seen, it never got easier seeing mutilated corpses, especially of young victims like this. The medical examiner looked completely unfazed, however, as he looked at her and explained his theory about her death.

"When we brought her in, we thought she was attacked by a wolf or something."

Dean looked like he was holding back vomit as he looked at the poor girl's scratched up head. "Or something."

He flashed a quick look to Sam that said about a half dozen different things before quickly looking back down at the body. He had just told Sam that this wasn't a werewolf attack like he had originally thought and that disappointed him. He was also at a complete loss for what creature would choose this way as a manner of death for its victim. He felt bad for the poor girl and was barely maintaining their cover through fighting the impulse to vomit. Well, at least Dean was looking at him again, even if it was to just wordlessly convey facts about the case. Sam felt much more at ease knowing that he could still count on Dean to be professional, despite their personal drama. The details got impossibly more gruesome when the medical examiner showed them an acrylic nail they'd found lodged in her head.

"You're saying she did this to herself?" Dean asked incredulously

"Uh-huh, she scratched her brains out. It would take hours and hurt like hell but, sure, it's possible."

Dean looked bewildered. "How?"

"Pick your acronym; PCP, OCD, it all spells crazy."

Sam didn't know whether or not he hoped the medical examiner was right about Amber Greer's death. Either way though, it was pretty clear that this case was going to be a bit different from their average job. And as the day wore on, he wasn't disappointed about that; the case kept them busy as it got weirder and weirder. They had no leads for the babysitter other than a packet of itching powder the kid had put in her hairbrush and then they were called back to the hospital to investigate the death of an elderly man who had been electrocuted by a joy buzzer. They were so wrapped up in the case that they had no time to talk about anything else, which Sam strongly suspected was why Dean was so eager to take on the case to begin with. By the time they got back from the Conjurarium, they were both thoroughly confused and exhausted. Dean spent the night eating copious amount of ham while Sam sat across the room from him doing research on his computer, neither of them saying much of anything except a few words here and there about the case. The tension between them was plain unbearable but Sam was still resolved not to push Dean to talk. Dean turned in early and Sam soon followed, too tired to care that it was only 9:00, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next day, Sam was walking out of the newest victim's hospital room, a man who had had all of his teeth pulled out by what he believed was the tooth fairy, when he spotted Dean right outside the door. He was supposedly "investigating the case," but from how close he was standing to the petite, dark-haired nurse he was talking to, Sam guessed he was only investigating how to get the woman's phone number. He walked a few steps closer so he could hear what they were saying.

"Well thank you, nurse…" Dean lifted up the nurse's name tag from her thigh, "Freemont."

She smiled flirtatiously at him. "Please, call me Jen."

Dean flashed back a predatory smile. "Oh. Jen it is."

Sam seethed. He'd been having these feelings for enough years every time Dean tried to pick up a hot piece of ass to understand it as jealousy. Why did he have to pick up every girl who even bothered to look twice at him? Couldn't he see they were in the middle of a job? Why was meaningless sex so important to him? Were nameless, faceless women more important to Dean than the case, saving people? More important than him? Keeping him safe? What if the guy in the hospital had been a psycho, or a monster? He would have killed him and Dean would never know because he was too busy trying to pick up some cheap, hot ass. Okay, so maybe he was going a little far with that last thought; he was a big boy; he could take care of himself. But Dean was slowing them down by taking out time they didn't have to flirt with every damn woman who crossed his path. Dean deserved better, he deserved…Sam's mind derailed as the familiar feelings of jealousy pumped through him. Sam knew he was being irrational and that his jealousy was unwarranted. Dean was his brother, he shouldn't be experiencing these feelings of ownership like he did, or feel like punching Dean in the face every time he saw him with someone else. He'd been telling himself this for years though, and the rationale had never once helped the feelings to lessen; if anything they were becoming more intense. Was that why he slept with him? While Sam had to admit that he thought it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to show Dean what sex felt like with someone who actually loved him, the rationale was twisted. Dean was his brother, and furthermore they were both straight. Well, Sam knew he was at least, well except, of course for having weird feelings of jealousy and violence whenever Dean even smiled at someone and the fact that, less than a week ago, they had had sex.

The nurse walked away and Sam approached, wishing he could knock Dean's cocky smile right off his face but he worked to keep his feelings in check. Dean smiled as if nothing had happened and clapped his hands once. "So, what happened to toothless? Cavity creeps get ahold of him?"

Sam smiled in a wholehearted attempt to hide his displeasure and described the way the victim saw his attacker, who, from the sounds of it, looked like a cross between the tooth fairy and John Belushi. Dean had some weird information of his own about some of the patients in a different ward; apparently Dean had done a little more research with that nurse other than the obvious. But the facts…they were just weird, even for them. It appeared something was re-shaping reality to kill people with childish pranks. Sam had no idea of what it added up to. He was pretty sure Dean had a theory, but at the moment he was going on about how he used to believe in sea monkeys. While it was nice for Sam to think about a time when Dean believed in something besides monsters, chaos, and evil, he kept heading for the door and waited for him to make his point.

"Maybe that's the connection," Dean finished, "the tooth fairy, pop rocks and coke, the joy buzzer that shocks people. They're all lies that kids believe."

Sam stopped and looked at his brother in disbelief. The theory was weird and crazy. And, he couldn't help but believe, possible. "And now they're coming true." Dean shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "So, whatever's doing this is reshaping reality, it has the powers of a god…" he rolled his eyes, "or of a trickster." Damn did he hate tricksters.

Dean scoffed a little at Sam's suggestion. "Yeah, with the sense of humor of a nine-year-old."

Sam nodded. "Or you." It was completely immature, of course, to attack his brother like that, but he was still pissed about his flirting with that damn nurse and he couldn't help taking a cheap shot when he had it. He got a sense of satisfaction when Dean's face crumbled a little at the insult as Sam then turned and walked away, heading for the door and away from that nurse as quickly as possible.

Dean stayed at the motel while Sam went out and did some research. He went to a local gas station to pick up a map of the area and plotted the addresses of each of the victims as points on the map, then headed to the library for more information. He didn't come away with much, but, whatever it was, it was reshaping reality in a small section of the town and he was certain it wasn't a trickster, or any other known creature he could think of. When he got back to the motel to tell Dean about his findings, he walked in to find him eating a ham sandwich.

"Dude, still with the ham?"

"We don't have a fridge!"

Sam rolled his eyes, threw the map down on the table in front of Dean's lunch and told him about what he had found: whatever this was, it was very localized to a circle of a just few miles with four acres of woodland and a farmhouse located at the center.

Dean looked at the map confusedly for a second until it looked like a thought suddenly dawned on him. "Our motel isn't within that circle by any chance?"

Sam's head jerked up as he looked his brother over. Had he been attacked? He looked okay, no bleeding or scratches, he hadn't been electrocuted and he had all his teeth. "Uh, yeah, it is. Why?"

Dean looked down embarrassedly for a second before holding up his hand to reveal a hairy palm.

Sam gaped at him in confusion for only a few seconds before he realized all the implications of what he was seeing. "Oh, dude." He closed his eyes and looked away in disgust. He did not want to think of his brother doing that. His mind involuntarily flashed to an image of Dean sitting on his motel bed, jeans unzipped, dick in his hand, as he stroked himself while thinking of some random chick and he felt his stomach twist. "That isn't what I think it is."

Dean smiled sheepishly. "I was bored. That nurse was hot."

"Oh, uh…" Great, now he had all he needed to even fill in some of Dean's fantasies as he pawed at himself while Sam was out, you know, working and doing some damn research to actually save lives, not screwing off, which was obviously all Dean…shit, he was getting himself worked up again. The same jealousy from earlier in the afternoon was once again gnawing at his insides. He tightly shut his eyes to push all irrational thoughts out of the way. "You know you can go blind from that too," he finished in a disapproving voice. That's right. Don't do that again while we're here, working on this case. Keep your damn hands and thoughts about fucking everything in sight to your own damn self.

Dean nodded. Damn, Sam was right; he had gotten away pretty lucky. He couldn't imagine having to go back to the hospital and that hot nurse and have to explain that he went blind while jacking off. To his brother. Again. He moved around Sam, trying to hide his discomfort at the proximity of their bodies. "Just give me five minutes and then we'll go check out that house." As he headed for the bathroom, he had to smile as he heard Sam's bitchy, disapproving voice call out "Hey, do not use my razor!" from behind him. Sounded like Sam was returning back to his normal self. He hoped so, at least, because Dean knew he certainly wasn't the same. He just prayed he was good enough at hiding it from Sam that he didn't notice and start asking questions.

Dean had stayed in the motel room while Sam was out with the full intention of doing nothing but jack off. It wasn't so much a physical need as it was a personal mission.: He needed to prove that he could jerk himself off to someone other than Sam. He had done it thousands of times in the past and there was no reason why he shouldn't be able to do it now. Stupid Chuck, he had started all this by writing down his freaky sex dream about him and Sam in the first place. Now Dean couldn't stop thinking about it. He was obsessing over what happened and it was making him so laser focused on Sam that he couldn't think of anyone else, not even while he was dreaming or jacking off. At least, that was the only explanation he could come up with. But now he had a new case to focus on, other things to think about, and he would find new people to fantasize about if he wanted to get himself off. In fact, it had been the whole reason he had flirted with that nurse to begin with: he was looking for new material.

So, when Sam left to go to the library, or a café, or wherever the fuck it was nerd boys liked to go these days, and Dean had locked himself in the bathroom, he'd started off with the best of intentions. Unfortunately those intentions had started with fucking the nurse and ended with being fucked by Sam. He shot his load all over his hand and when he went to clean it off in the sink was when he noticed the hairy palm.

He used Sam's razor before they left. Of course he used Sam's razor; his bitchy whining about it practically begged him to. Afterwards he took extra care to leave as much hair in the razor as possible and leave it in a puddle of shaving cream by the sink. When he stepped out of the bathroom, Sam was waiting for him by the door, arms crossed and eyes narrowed in suspicion. Dean eyed his brother's expression and smiled with utmost delight. He shrugged his suit jacket back on and headed towards the door.

"Ready Sam. Come on, let's go!"


	6. Soulmates

Dean heard the flapping of wings behind him as he lay on his motel bed and wasn't surprised when he opened his eyes and saw Castiel looking down at him with an intense stare.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean groaned. "Cas."

Castiel looked around the room in puzzlement. "Where's Sam?"

"Out getting salt."

Castiel nodded, looking satisfied with that answer, then focused his attention back on Dean. "If we find the child again, we have to kill it."

Dean turned onto his side and found himself face-to-face with the angel's crotch. "Seriously Cas, personal space."

Castiel looked down with an embarrassed expression. "My apologies." He backed up a couple of steps. Dean sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes. "If we ever manage to track down that child, that thing, we have to kill it."

That child. That thing. Jesse. The antichrist. The antichrist who was only nine years old and until earlier tonight didn't even know that demons were real. A creature half human and half demon who was so powerful that he was reshaping reality without even knowing it, who hurt people without ever meaning to, and who made himself disappear to God knows where to keep himself and his family safe. A good kid, all things considered.

"Yeah, okay."

He didn't agree with Cas; actually the exact opposite, but right then he couldn't bring himself to care. It had been a long day. His back hurt like hell after having been thrown up against the wall by some Hellbitch who'd pressed him so hard against the drywall that it had cracked behind him. Almost being murdered by demons was always a drag. And then having to run from town last night so they could escape the hordes of demons that were no doubt rushing to the house to collect the kid was also less than ideal. And then there had been the fact that when they were leaving Jesse's house and Dean had had his arm slung across Sam's shoulders so Sam could help him limp to the car, that he couldn't help but notice how firm Sam's body felt underneath his clothes. And with that thought, Dean had jerked back reflexively from Sam's body and then had promptly fallen into a shrub. Jesus Christ, he was sick. Sick, sick, sick. Sam was still just a kid. Well, okay, maybe not; he was 26 after all, but he was Dean's kid brother. Dean had practically raised him. Why was he fixating on Sam so much all of a sudden? It used to be that these sorts of things would happen only occasionally: every once in a while Dean would have a sex dream about Sam, every now and again would find that Sam snuck his way in to a fantasy, on occasion he noticed some aspect of Sam's body. And he was always sure that he could find some reason other than the obvious for why those things happened. But now it was happening all the time and it wouldn't stop. Why was this happening? Why –

"Dean?" Dean turned his head to Castiel, suddenly remembering that he was in the room with him. "Are you feeling ill? You seem…distracted."

Dean's mouth shaped into an "O" and his face went to panic for a split second. "Yeah, I mean no, I'm fine. Sorry. So, about this kid?"

Castiel was squinting as he stared at him, looking as if he was earnestly trying to see through Dean's very soul. "You're not thinking about the boy; I can see something else is troubling you."

Dean's mask finally slipped into place and he cracked a cocky smile. "Nah, not thinking of anything. It's just been a long day, you know, finding the antichrist and being thrown into the wall by a demon bitch and all."

Castiel cocked his head to the side as he stared confusedly at Dean. "No." His voice was full of surprise and wonder, as if he had just discovered something, but he was still squinting, his face still furrowed in confusion. "Is this because of you and Sam?"

Dean inwardly panicked while the smile stayed confidently on his face. Could he know? No, he could be talking about something else, probably the recently visible strain on his and Sam's relationship since the apocalypse started. Either way, denial was the only way to go. "Don't know what you're talking about; Sam and I are fine."

Castiel nodded. "Good. I was worried that you might have some reserves about having sexual relations with him."

Dean's smile vanished. He looked directly at the angel's face. There were no traces of disgust or indignation, no hint of recognition over his admission of knowing that he and Sam had done something that just had to send a person to Hell in at least six different ways. He did look puzzled, but hell, Cas always looked puzzled. "How – how do you know about that?"

Castiel looked down and shuffled his feet. "The markings on your ribs hide me from you and Sam. I've been taking certain precautions, such as watching Chuck's visions, to ensure your safety."

"You've been spying on us?"

"In a manner of speaking. It's risky; other angels are watching Chuck's dreams, looking for visions, for a sign or indication of how this is going to end. But I'm usually able to do it."

Dean groaned. Well, that was just great. "How many other angels know about me and Sam?"

"Quite a few. It's in the hundreds at least. Is that important?"

Great. He could just imagine what his next meeting with Zachariah was going to be like. He stared angrily at Castiel. "Is that important? What the Hell do you mean 'is that important'?"

Castiel looked at Dean like a small child who was ardently trying to understand the fundamentals of rocket science. "Should I rephrase the question?"

Dean stared at Castiel in total shock. "Should you – you're telling me that hundreds of angels know that –" his face soured as he thought of the words he couldn't bring himself to say, "and that's not important?"

"Your relationship with Sam turning sexual is by no means causing a revolution in heaven. One might say that, given the nature of your connection, it's even the logical progression of things."

Dean shot up from his bed and stared Castiel in the face, not being able to decide between whether to feel curious or angry before he settled on both. "Logical progression? We're brothers! What the Hell is logical about that?"

Castiel seemed unmoved and unsurprised by Dean's outburst. "Yes, here you're brothers, in this realm. You weren't supposed to be. The angels plucked your souls and set them down in your family, in your vessels to fulfill the ancient prophesy of Revelations. I don't know where you were supposed to live, who you were supposed to be, but it wasn't in Kansas and it wasn't with John and Mary Winchester."

"What?" Dean was now so shocked that he forgot to be angry. "Why would they do that? Why them? Why us? Why are we the ones everyone's always screwing with, huh?"

"You're soulmates. You and Sam are singularly the strongest soul connection I've ever seen. This connection you two have makes you unique. No matter where one of you is on the planet, the other one will find him. You two are attracted to each other like magnetic poles. I'm sure you've already felt that pull of which I'm speaking. This closeness you two share makes both of you very easy to manipulate, especially when one is faced with the possibility of losing the other. More importantly though, is that the strength of your connection means that your destinies are intricately and irrevocably tied to one another. This makes you perfect candidates too for Michael and Lucifer. You were chosen to be the children of John and Mary Winchester because their bloodlines mixed together formed you and Sam into beings capable of withstanding the possession of angels as powerful as Michael or Lucifer. Also, each of their bloodlines share some ancient history with each other, further solidifying, what many of the angels feel, is your destiny."

Dean stood there for several moments, trying to sort it all out. This was a lot to absorb and it was kind of making his head ache. "Soulmates?"

"Yes."

"Soulmates." He still couldn't believe the term, especially when it applied to he and Sam. It was ridiculous. "You mean, two halves of one power ring, or whatever, and put us together, out comes Captain Planet?"

"I don't know anything about this captain. And no. You are one soul. Sam is one soul. Your souls are perfectly opposite to one another, making them fully complimentary to the other. Apart, you have imperfections, weaknesses that leave each of you lacking. But together, your souls equal absolute perfection and flawless unity, the perfect balance of yin and yang."

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. "And what does this have to do with it being totally natural to fuck my own brother?"

"Before you and Sam, I have never seen any set of soulmates acquire the same level of opposing perfection. There were always cracks, imperfections that inherently came with being human. But you and Sam are the perfect complement to one another. That hole you feel when Sam isn't around is your soul crying out for its complement. Neither of you will ever feel whole without the other. That was how Azazel knew you would sell your soul to resurrect your brother, putting you exactly where he wanted you."

Dean balked. "Yellow-eyes knew?"

"You always knew from the start that there were many forces pushing at your relationship with Sam and trying to pervert it from what it was originally intended to be."

This was all terrifying. Dean smirked and scoffed. "Great, well, it sounds like it's all perfect. Except, you know, the incest, and the fact that Sam and I are both straight."

"Sam's straight," Castiel blurted. "But regardless of your normal sexual preferences, your souls will always be drawn to each other and that attraction often carries over into the physical."

Dean was now officially overloaded. His brain short-circuited by about a thousand different thoughts that simultaneously raced through his mind, all demanding immediate attention. He grabbed the sides of his head and closed his eyes. "Cas, I can't really hear any more of this right now, could you just –" Before he could finish his sentence, he heard the beating of wings and Castiel was gone. "Surprised he stuck around this long," he muttered to himself. "Guy does a real bang-up job with good-byes." Dejectedly, he sat down on his bed, looked down at the floor, and then put face in his hands.

At that moment, Sam came through the front door, carrying three large bags of rock salt. "I know I probably should have left two of these in the car but – Dean? You okay?"

Dean got up and, without looking up at his brother once, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. "Yeah. I'm going out."

"What? It's the middle of the night, where could you possibly be going?"

He opened the door and didn't look back at his brother as he spoke. "Out!" He inwardly flinched a little; Sam didn't deserve the emo-bitchy attitude. "I'll be back by morning, don't wait up." With that, he closed the door behind him, climbed into the Impala, and peeled out of the parking lot before Sam could stop him.

As he drove, his head spun with all the things Castiel had said, but two words swirled around his head more than any other. Sam's straight. Sam's straight? And that was meaning to imply that he wasn't straight? How could anyone suggest that Dean Winchester was anything other than a manly example of virile heterosexuality? He had never even so much as kissed another man! It wasn't that it was wrong to be gay, of course not; other people could be gay, or bi, or whatever. Just not him. He was the kind of man his dad had raised him to be: manly, military trained, knew his way around almost any kind of weapon, could sometimes take on as many as four guys in a fight. And he loved women, all kinds, all shapes. He had been with hundreds of them; he was a veritable sex god. He was a considerate, passionate lover in bed and a cold, ruthless killer on the job. He was everything he was trained to be.

And apparently more. There were little things, stuff he tried to forget the instant they happened, things he had explained away, but he hadn't ever really forgotten them, no matter how hard he tried: his secret admiration for the actor from Dr. Sexy MD that sometimes carried over into dreams that left him achingly hard; that guy in that diner in Tulsa six months ago whose ass Dean couldn't help but stare at in secret appreciation before tearing his eyes away and hitting extra hard on the busty waitress for good measure; the tall blonde guy in the bar back when Sam was in college who bought Dean a drink and Dean had just sat there letting himself be flirted with shamelessly, only putting a stop to it when the guy aggressively placed a hand on Dean's upper thigh; the cute senior back in high school with shaggy brown hair and dimples who looked kind of like Sam who asked Dean out on a date and Dean had felt a strange and irrational surge of anger that nearly made him deck the kid, stopping himself only at the last minute. There weren't that many of them, but they were definitely there, lurking at the back of his consciousness. With each recollection, he felt physically sicker and sicker. He needed a drink. If he turned around, there was a dive just a few miles away from where he and Sam were staying, a place that promised whiskey and a few hours of forgetting. That was where he needed to be. Really, he needed to be there half an hour ago when Castiel had started talking. He turned his car around and began heading back in the direction of the motel as fast as he could drive.


	7. When Love and Hate Collide

In the meantime, Sam sat at the edge of his bed, alone in the motel room with Dean's bottle of Jack. He gripped the bottle and took as big of sips as his throat and stomach would allow. He never used to drink this much. But, even at their worst, his relationship with Dean had never been this tense. He took a sip. He couldn't believe the lengths Dean was going to to avoid him. It was bad enough that when they weren't working on a case, Dean couldn't even look at him. Now he couldn't even be in the same room with him. Last night Dean was injured for Christ's sake and he was still so appalled by Sam's touch that, when Sam tried to help him, he had jerked back so exaggeratedly that he fell into the shrubbery outside one of Jesse's neighbor's houses. It was so ridiculous that it would have been comical if it didn't hurt so much to see Dean's obvious revulsion towards him. He took another sip. And now Dean was out getting smashed and nailing the first available woman within striking distance, running his hands all over some random stranger to help him forget that he had ever run those same hands all over him.

He took a deep swig and made a grimace as the bitter, burning liquid hit his tongue and throat. Yeah, of course all this stuff with them being together a week ago was hard, but was the thought of touching him really that repulsive? After all, Sam couldn't help but feel that Dean could have, and sometimes had, done far worse with others in the looks department. Yeah, it was a twisted thought, especially given that they were brothers and all, not to mention that neither of them was into guys, but he couldn't stop his self-esteem from taking a huge knock over how disgusting Dean found him. After all, he wasn't disgusted by Dean.

Hell, he had done a lot worse than Dean. Ruby. Ugh. He took another sip. What was he thinking when he'd hooked up with a demon? It wasn't really a question he needed to ask himself though; he knew exactly what he'd been thinking. Dean was gone. Forever. And Sam had this horrible, crushing, black emptiness inside of him that he knew, no matter how long he lived, no matter what he did, would never be filled without him. He was miserable. He was suicidal. He was horribly lonely. And he hated himself most of all. After all, if he couldn't save Dean, if he couldn't bring him back from hell, then he was worthless. Then Ruby came along with the offer of at least physical release from all his frustrations. When she placed her hands on him he'd wanted to vomit, but he took her up on it anyway. It felt wrong the whole time and he always hated himself afterwards, so they didn't do it often. But he had still done it. It was disgusting and wrong, but he'd done it. He took another sip. But Dean, that was different. He was strong, brave, fiercely loyal, self-sacrificing, loving, funny, and smart. And, Sam couldn't help but notice, handsome.

Actually, when he thought about it, the idea of being with Dean wasn't really all that disturbing, it was just the idea of incest that was. Well, that and when he logically thought about having incest with his brother that it didn't bother him nearly as much as he was sure it should. In some seriously fucked up way he actually found the idea kind of nice and comforting. It felt right. But really, it was anything but right; it was sick and fucked up and… just so wrong. Even more wrong than Ruby. At least he and Ruby weren't related. Maybe he was drunk. Sam looked down at the bottle to find that there was a surprisingly less amount of liquid in it than when he had picked it up. He set it down beside the bed and then scrubbed his face with his hands. At least Dean had the good sense to feel how disgusting it was, but he wasn't dealing with this whole ordeal much better than Sam. He really wanted to leave, just grab his duffel, steal the first car he saw, and run. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't run and they couldn't deal with it and they couldn't forget. Screw it; he wasn't going to just sit in the motel room waiting around while Dean went out did whatever the hell he wanted. He grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

When Sam got to the Red Spot bar, he didn't have to look around long to find out if his brother was also there. Dean was leaned back on a barstool near the front door, looking as smug as ever, chatting up two decent-looking girls who appeared to be enraptured by whatever lie he was feeding them. Maybe this time he was a movie producer, or an FBI agent, maybe even a fighter pilot. Every night was Halloween when Dean went out to the bar; he could be anyone. Sam rolled his eyes and headed for the nearest booth.

As he turned though, he heard a familiar voice say a little too loudly behind him, "Well, will you look at that? There's my partner right there! I told you, this guy, he can find anything, am I right?" Sam didn't deviate from his course, or even turn around to acknowledge Dean as he slid into a booth and looked down at the table. If Dean was looking to score tonight, he was going to have to do it without reeling him into it in any way. "Excuse me, ladies," he heard him say, "I just gotta go check with my partner on something and I'll be right back. Don't get any cuter while I'm gone, okay?" He laughed at his own joke. "Nah, I'm just kidding." A moment later, Sam found himself sitting opposite his grinning brother, who stared at him with glazed over, green eyes.

"Sammy!" He said his brother's name with all the affection he used to use when Sam was twelve. Well, at least he could spend time with him when he was drunk.

Sam shook his head. "Who are you tonight, Dean?"

Dean raised an eyebrow and studied Sam's face for a moment before shooting him an amused smile. "You're drunk." Dean chuckled. "ATF. You too, partner."

"Seriously? Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? That's what you came up with?"

"Hey! I bet I know more about alcohol and firearms than most of those suits."

"Drinking the nearest bottle of whatever's in front of you only makes you an expert in alcoholism, Dean."

"Shuddup. Hey, those two girls over there, I call dibs on the blonde."

Sam looked over at the bar where the two girls were eyeing the both of them up with increasing interest. "Oh, come on! Dean, I'm not doing that!"

"Okay, okay, you can have the blonde. Her name's Amy. Or Abby. Or something."

Sam slapped a palm to his face. He couldn't believe Dean was pulling this crap again. "No Dean, I thought we agreed you wouldn't try to make me hook up anymore." He flashed a grin at the girls, then turned back to his brother, his face once again deadly serious. "Remember the last time you pushed this too far? Nebraska, four years ago? Don't make me do it again, Dean. Because I will if I have to."

The smile vanished from Dean's face. He knew Dean would remember that embarrassing stunt he'd pulled the last time he'd gotten too insistent on where Sam did, or rather didn't, shove his dick. So far, the one and only time he'd done it was shortly after they'd hunted that murderous, haunted painting in New York almost a year after Sam had left Stanford. In those days, Dean was constantly trying to pimp Sam out to everyone. All it took was for a waitress to put a little extra emphasis on "is there anything else I can get you" for Dean to practically shove Sam at her. And, when Sam invariably declined and reminded Dean that random hook-ups weren't his thing, Dean would give him a lecture about being allowed to have fun. By the time they'd investigated that painting, Dean had reached a fever-pitch: the minute they'd hit town, he'd tried hooking Sam up with a couple of girls at a bar and, when that didn't work, he had spent most of his spare time trying to coerce Sam into having sex with that art dealer, Sarah. Sam knew Dean was trying to help him have fun and he appreciated the concern, so he'd put up with Dean's haranguing for a while, but Jessica had just died. He'd been with her since sophomore year at Stanford and she was his first real girlfriend. He'd never had sex with anyone before her and he didn't think he should have sex again because, after his mom and Jess had both died pinned to a ceiling with their stomachs slashed open and set aflame, he was pretty sure he was cursed. If his loving a woman meant she had to die bloody, then it was really for the greater good that he kept it in his pants. He never told Dean his main reason for avoiding sex, but he didn't think he had to. But, of course, Dean was unrelenting and Sam had had to take some more…extreme measures to keep Dean off his back.

His reasons for not wanting to hook up were a little different now than they were back then, but some things hadn't changed. Random hook-ups still weren't his preference, he still hated when Dean tried to switch roles from brother to pimp, and he was not beyond embarrassing the hell out of him like he had before to show Dean that he was serious.

.

Dean stared at his brother in disbelief. He looked pretty serious, but Dean didn't think he was pushing Sam very hard and, besides, didn't Sam want to try forget about what they'd done by distracting himself with a chick? Dean was just trying to help; whenever he tried to hook Sam up, he was always trying to help. Sam didn't seem to understand this. That was why he'd pushed so hard for it after Sam had left Stanford. For the 3 ½ miserable years Dean had spent after Sam had ditched him for Stanford, sex, drugs, and copious amounts of liquor were the only things that got him through. Sam didn't drink much and he didn't do drugs, but everyone liked sex. Dean was sure a little casual sex would make Sam feel better too if he was willing to give it half a shot.

Back when Sam had left Stanford, he'd been so miserable and Dean had just wanted to see him happy again, so, yeah, maybe back then, he'd been a little overly desperate to get Sam laid. Whenever Sam was miserable, it was always Dean's instinct to do whatever was necessary to make him feel better. And, with Sam being so miserable over Jess, it had been causing some certain weird thoughts to develop for Dean. It had gotten to the point that whenever Sam frowned, Dean had had to resist the urge to strip naked and jump on top of him. He'd wanted to do whatever he could to give Sam the kind of ecstasy that would make him forget, even if just for a little while, his mourning. It was seriously fucked up and panic inducing to have thoughts like that screaming in his head all day. So, yeah, Sam really, really needed to get laid. By someone who wasn't him. Immediately. But Sam was refusing and bitching about the easy targets Dean was throwing at him, so Dean had just kept trying.

He hadn't imagined that Sam was so serious about not wanting to hook up that he'd use every one of his acting skills to embarrass and traumatize the hell out of him. He would never forget that day. It was in a diner somewhere in Nebraska. He and Sam were in no hurry and just looking for a hunt. Sam hadn't sleep well the night before, so he'd been particularly ornery and, as he'd scowled down at his coffee, Dean had been glad that Sam's foul disposition wasn't at least hurting Dean's game any. The waitress, a pretty little brunette with honeyed skin and full lips, was circling their table every five minutes to wink or make some flirtatious remark, which Dean readily returned. After they finished their meals, Sam had wanted to leave.

"In a minute," Dean had said with the cheeky smile. "I think I'm going to get me some pie. And," he motioned to the waitress, "get me some pie."

"Real classy, Dean."

Dean jerked his head to a cute redhead who had been checking out Sam from across the room. "Looks like you can have some too, if you want it. Come on, what'd ya say? We could stay in town for the rest of the afternoon, turn that frown upside-down?"

Their waitress was once again approaching their table and Sam grinned wickedly at his brother just before she arrived.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" she asked with a wide grin and a wink at Dean.

Dean waggled his eyebrows, but before he could say anything, Sam suddenly piped up. "Nothing for me, thanks, but I think my boyfriend here told me he wanted some pie." Dean stared at Sam, horrified, but Sam played right into it. "Oh, I'm sorry honey, am I wrong?" Then to the waitress, "you know what, could we get two slices of the blueberry cobbler to go?" He reached over, grabbed Dean's hand and held it firmly before Dean even fully realized what was going on. "He's trying to watch his weight, but I know he'll want it later."

The waitress's smile was wiped off her face so quickly it was as if someone had slapped her. "Um, sure. Sorry."

Sam smiled at her innocently, hamming it up. "About what?"

She closed her eyes, looking embarrassed. "What – nothing. Sorry." Then she scampered off as if their table was on fire.

Dean wrenched his hand away from Sam and looked at him with hard eyes. "What the hell was that?"

Sam smirked and leaned so far across the table that, for one wild moment, Dean had thought he was actually going to kiss him. Instead, he stopped a few inches away from his face and whispered, "try pimping me out again and I'll keep doing that until you stop."

.

Since then, Dean had been careful, making sure not to push Sam's patience to that critical level where he'd start gaying them up in public. But it seemed Sam's tolerance level had just been lowered. Dean could tell by the look in his eyes that Sam would have no trouble making a scene at the bar and embarrassing him the same way. Even all the fucked up shit going on with them wasn't going to deter him.

Dean leaned back in his chair, trying and failing miserably to look unaffected by Sam's threat. "Fine. I just didn't want to be greedy. But I'll take them both. I figure I'll need about another half hour to seal the deal and then, I don't know, you could go out and catch a movie or something."

"Dean, it's the middle of the night, how could I even find a theatre open at this time!"

Dean shrugged. "Sit in the car, go over Dad's journal. You've done that before."

Sam leaned forward, eyes filling with rage. "Not tonight," he hissed. "I'm not letting you kick me out."

Dean put his elbows on the table and also leaned towards Sam, meeting his bluff. "Then I guess you'll just see some things you don't want to."

It all happened in less than a second, in way less time than Dean had to react beforehand. Sam gruffly grabbed Dean by the back of the head and mashed their lips together in a hard kiss. Dean's eyes widened in shock and disbelief. Turned out drunk Sam had a lot less discretion than Dean could have even anticipated. These were pretty extreme lengths for anyone to go to just to get to stay in a crappy motel room all night and especially if this was to punish him for trying to hook him up with a random barfly. Sam's lips were soft but his breath reeked of whiskey. Dean's mouth tingled pleasantly with the feel of Sam's lips moving against his. Every nerve in his body begged him to kiss Sam back but Dean froze, his body going completely rigid and his mouth unmoving. He shouldn't want this. Even drunk, Sam moved his lips with skill and Dean could feel the beginnings of his arousal rising up within him when suddenly a barrage of words exploded inside his head: _Disgusting, faggot, incest, brothers, molester, rapist, sick fuck, pervert, asshole._

Dean felt a shock of anger race through him. He grabbed the front of Sam's jacket and wrenched his brother away, then crooked a fist and hit him hard in the jaw. Sam sat for a second in stunned silence rubbing his face where he had been hit, which, as it turned out, was just enough time for Dean to storm out, get into his car, and peel out of the parking lot, leaving Sam alone to walk back to the motel room.

It wasn't a long walk he reasoned to himself, Sam would be okay. In the meantime, Dean hit the gas a little harder as he drove way too fast down the newly rain-slicked back roads. He had been so focused on escape that he'd turned the wrong way out of the bar to get to the motel room, but he wasn't turning back. God help him, back there he had actually wanted this sick, crazy thing with Sam. Even in a crowded biker bar with the two girls he was trying to pick up watching and where it was possible they would get their asses beat by some backwoods hick for openly making out in public, he wanted it. Sam. The same guy who, when they were kids, Dean had taught how to zip up his jacket and tie his shoes. And now…

Dean slammed on his breaks hard, sending the car into a wild fishtail until it came to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. He threw the car into park that way, leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, and openly wept. He wanted Sam, wanted him sexually, and, soulmates or not, it was unforgivable. Cas had said they would be drawn to each other, that that attraction could turn physical, but… Sam's straight. Sam's straight. Sam's straight. Sam didn't want him like that; he was just wasted and angry and took things a step too far. Sam's relationship to him was different, healthier: he trusted Dean to be there for him, protect him, and keep him on the straight and narrow. But Dean, no, Dean was a sick bastard who wanted to make out with his brother. And do more, so, so much more with him than even that. Dean pounded the steering wheel a couple of times as he continued to lean against it and let out a loud, exasperated, pained moan. He sat there like that for several minutes before he could compose himself enough to stop crying, lean back in his seat, and finally move the car off to the shoulder. He shifted his body as he put the car back into park and felt the cool metal of his Colt .45 nestled in the waistband of his faded jeans. He reached his hand over and absently fingered the smooth polished finish of the handle. For one crazy second, he heard a voice in his head say, _do it. Go ahead and do it. You already hurt Sammy, you don't deserve to live. Do it. You'll be doing him a favor. This way you can't hurt him again, can't leave him with another morning of his ass hurting and no memory of it. Do it._ He considered this for a moment before he pushed the thoughts away. He wasn't going to act on these feelings for Sam. He had been kind of drunk at the bar and was able to control himself; he could do it again, keep going this way. He wasn't going to fuck up Sammy the way he was. He was never going to hurt his brother again.

In the meantime, Sam walked alone down the quiet paved road to the motel room. He supposed he'd deserved the punch Dean gave him tonight. It was stupid of him to kiss him like that; he was drunk and wasn't thinking straight. He just couldn't seem to help himself when Dean started talking about hooking up with those girls while Sam sat right outside the damn motel room, waiting for Dean to let him back inside the room while, just a few yards away from him, Dean was kissing, licking, fondling, and sharing orgasms someone else. All of this had flashed through his mind at the time and Sam couldn't help but think only one simple word: _mine_ , before he grabbed Dean and pressed those soft, full lips against his. He hadn't expected Dean to kiss back, and didn't really have a plan set in motion either when he did it; he had just wanted to claim Dean as his and let those bar sluts know that they couldn't have him. Dean belonged to him. Or, at least, he wanted him to. It seemed pretty apparent by now that his feelings for Dean were a little more than just brotherly. It should have bothered him more than it did to come to this revelation, but it really wasn't very surprising. Really, it was less of a revelation and more of a resigned acceptance of what he had known for years and had just never been willing to admit to himself. After all, it was wrong, and it could destroy their relationship. If Dean knew that Sam was harboring feelings like this for him, he knew Dean would be disgusted by him. Would Dean walk out on him over it? Dean was everything to him and Sam wasn't just ready to give that all up just because he wanted him.

It was strange that he had never wanted or noticed any guy besides him, but maybe that was just because he was only a little bit bi and choosy about men? Sam wasn't really sure and it seemed a little early to try putting a label on himself just yet. The situation at hand was that Sam wanted his brother and needed to accept that he could never have him. He needed to stop acting like a jealous boyfriend every time Dean tried to hook up with some pretty little piece of ass and he certainly had to stop trying to kiss him. He needed to let Dean go in that way and just be his brother. It was a tall order to fill but, faced with the alternative of losing him, he was pretty sure he could at least try.

Sam arrived back in the motel room about an hour after Dean and he was already lying in bed when Sam opened the door. Without lifting his eyes to Dean's gaze, Sam crossed the room, sat down on his bed, untied his shoes, and laid down. No words passed between them, but Dean shifted in his bed and turned his back on Sam and, in that moment, his body language said enough. Dean didn't want to talk about what had just happened and, for once, that was just peachy with Sam.


	8. Me and Bobby Singer

It wasn't until after Sam, Dean, and Bobby dealt with the man-witch that the subject of Sam and Dean's relationship came up again. Sam had just gone off for his booster shot after the man-witch gave him the clap, (which was still pretty funny,) and Dean was packing up Bobby's van when he heard Bobby call him back into Dean and Sam's motel room where they had just been chatting. Dean walked into the room and sat down across from Bobby at the small kitchen table in the middle of their room.

"What's up?"

Bobby eyed up Dean with concern. "Can I ask you something, boy?"

"Sure, Bobby."

"Why'd you do it? You know, make a deal with the thing. I mean me, I'm old and sad, ain't got a whole lot around keeping me here. But you, back there you were just damn reckless. Playing around with dark magic and stuff like that, I hate to say it, but it's more Sam's style, not yours. Also, being willing to just piss away fifty good years of your life like that…" he paused and shook his head. "It's almost as if you wanna die." Dean looked down guiltily at the carpet and the ensuing silence on Dean's end was more than enough of an answer for Bobby. "Damn it, Dean! What is so damn terrible in your life that you're always so ready and willing to run into almost any situation and kill yourself?"

Dean was practically shaking in his effort to keep quiet. He had been carrying this around with him for a full three weeks now and the weight of it was nearly killing him. Why did he play for fifty years with the man-witch? He could have played for only twenty-five just to get Bobby's years back and yeah, it had been reckless. But the thing was, he didn't care. Playing for years was exciting and playing for that many years was a really great cheap thrill and that was all he was looking for. And if he lost, no biggie – his suffering would just be that much shorter. Because that's all existence was to him anymore since two weeks ago when he had finally realized his feelings for Sam.

If things sometimes got awkward during the many years before when he was in complete and utter denial about his feelings for Sam, it was about a thousand times worse now. Making sure he didn't act on his feelings while simultaneously keeping Sam oblivious to them required him to take certain evasive measures. First of all, he had to keep his eyes glued to the television or focused on cleaning a weapon every time Sam changed clothes in front of him or stepped out of the bathroom after a shower, towel slung around his waist, beads of water dripping from his long locks and down his muscular torso. Actually, he applied this routine any time they were alone in their motel room and he thought he might look lustfully at Sam. Their guns were now the cleanest they had ever been and the knives were all so sharp that he was almost afraid to handle them. Secondly, he needed to maintain an absurd amount of physical distance between them as often as possible. Knowing that he wanted something so desperately that was, literally, always right in front of him, left his body practically tingling with pent-up energy whenever Sam was near. All this tension resulted in his taking more trips to the bar, but never ended with his going home with anyone because he didn't even feel like having sex with other people anymore. No amount of women could fill the void he now felt and furthermore, he actually had this stupid feeling like he was almost cheating on Sam when he thought to try. Sam was starting to raise an eyebrow at him lately about all these changes though and, although Dean still tried to put on a good show by flirting with every woman who crossed his path while Sam was around, he knew it was only going to be a matter of time before Sam finally broke his silence and asked Dean what was going on, and that wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to.

He had further complicated things by spending the past two weeks trying to figure out how long he had felt this way about Sam. He still wasn't entirely sure but he had come to the conclusion that it was at least a good year before Sam left for Stanford and fully realizing that at one point he had wanted to fuck his seventeen year old jailbait brother was, on top of everything else, just a little too much to handle. Also, there was that little fact that now he had actually had sex with Sam and all the angels knew about it. So, yeah, the idea of death wasn't completely unappealing to him at the moment.

"Answer me, Dean!" Bobby demanded.

Unwarranted and indignant anger welled up inside him. "I was saving your ass!" he spat. "Because, in case it's escaped your attention, you played that son of a bitch too!"

Bobby squinted at Dean for a long moment before he gestured to his wheelchair. "I know why I'm suicidal, what's your story?"

The words came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Sam and I had sex."

He winced; there is was, out in the open and there was no taking it back. In a way Dean felt like enormously relieved to have finally said it out loud, but at the same time he was filled with fear and apprehension that he had let it out to Bobby, of all people. Yeah, that's a great idea Dean, he thought to himself, go ahead and alienate the closest thing you and Sam have to a father since Dad's death. He looked down at the table like a shamed child and waited for Bobby's response. To his surprise though, Bobby remained silent, probably too shocked to even form a sentence just yet. After about thirty seconds of continued silence, Dean chanced a look at Bobby's face and found his expression impassive.

At seeing Dean looking at him, Bobby nodded his head slightly a couple of times. "And?"

Dean's eyes widened in shock. What the hell did he mean, and? Here he was, admitting that he'd had incestuous relations with his own brother and Bobby was looking at him as if he'd just told him that he needed to borrow a socket wrench. "And? Bobby, we had sex! With each other!"

Bobby's eyes crinkled in confusion. "You telling me you wanna try to change the subject by bragging about your sex life with Sam?"

Dean's jaw dropped. It seemed one of them was missing something very critical here and he was no longer certain which one of them it was. "I'm sorry, our what?"

Suddenly, it looked like something inside Bobby's head finally clicked and he looked concerned. "Oh, you mean you boys had sex after that he-witch gave Sam the clap? If that's the case, you're gonna wanna get yourself checked out; no need to be spreading that stuff around, or giving it back to Sam."

Dean stared, eyes wide and mouth hanging wide open for several moments, too confused to even formulate a question, before he finally realized what Bobby was saying. "You think…no! Bobby, no!"

Bobby shrugged. "Come on, Dean. I never judged you or Sam for it. Hell, I wasn't even all that surprised when I found out, and that was years ago. I mean, given the way you two were raised…"

"Sam and I were drunk and it happened one time, weeks ago." He screwed his face up into an angry and bemused expression. "Years? What do you mean, years?"

Shock washed over Bobby's face as true realization finally came over him. "You're telling the truth – you and Sam really aren't together. Well, I certainly had you two pegged wrong."

Dean wasn't sure whether or not he was angry as he looked into Bobby's bewildered face. "A lot of people think a lot of things about us, but out of everyone Bobby, I expected that you would know the truth."

"I'm sorry, Dean. It's just, well, you boys are always together, and the way you look at each other sometimes, I thought you were just trying to hide it, didn't want me finding out."

Dean's mouth was clamped tight, muscles working furiously in his jaw as he continued to stare. Bobby rolled his wheelchair to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer, then rolled back to the table and sat one of them down in front of Dean. He popped the top on his own and took a swig, looking at Dean expectantly, but Dean was no longer in any mood to talk. Bobby had thought they were having sex with each other for years and didn't say anything. How many other people thought the same thing? It was one thing for perfect strangers who didn't know them from a hole in the ground to get them confused, but this was Bobby for crying out loud. How many other people were picking up on this weird, one-way sexual tension that Dean hadn't even fully realized was going on all these years?

Dean smirked, not sure what other expression he could make, and shook his head. He stood up, popped the top off his own beer, took a swig and stared down at the carpet. "Years. Wouldn't you think there would be more of an indication besides one or two strange looks to tell you something was going on? Don't you think that after all these years you would have walked in on something?"

"I thought you boys were just being considerate by being quiet about it whenever you stayed over."

It was so matter-of-fact the way he put it, as if Sam was his wife or something. He downed the rest of his beer and headed to the fridge for another one. He opened it up while standing behind Bobby and looked at the back of his head. "It doesn't bother you?"

"It used to, back when I thought I might have to say something to your daddy and I'm still not gonna say that I fully understand it, but you and Sam are grown men and you can make your own decisions. Like I said, given the way you boys were raised, I'm not very surprised. All you two ever had was each other."

He moved around Bobby and sat back down in his chair. "I sleep with women!"

"Look, I never really thought hard about the details, I just figured you two had an open relationship."

Dean couldn't help laughing now. "Open relationship? Sam won't even share his french-fries!"

Bobby sighed. "Well, now that you boys have…" he made a vague gesture, "what are you going to do now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing, huh?" Bobby shot up an inquisitive eyebrow and took another swig of his beer. "You talk to Sam about any of this?"

"No." He took a swig of his beer. "And I'm not going to."

"Right." Bobby gave him a little nod, but his eyes went wide with concern. "That seems to be workin'."

"You're starting to sound like Sam."

Bobby leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "Well, then let me tell you something else that you probably already heard from Sam. You're acting like a damn idjit out there, so you better deal with whatever the hell this thing is between you and your brother before you go off and do some other stupid, fool thing and end up getting the both of you killed!" He shouted the last six words right in Dean's face, almost making him flinch.

Dean looked down and nodded solemnly. "Okay, Bobby, I will." He got up and slowly made his way towards the door. "Well, you coming or not, Iron Sides?" Bobby rolled his eyes and Dean flashed him a wide smile before disappearing from the doorway, leaving Bobby to follow.


	9. You Don't Mess Around with Jim

Sam finished with his appointment, (after listening to a rather unnecessary five minute lecture from the doctor about the importance of always using a condom,) and headed back to the motel. When he walked in, Dean was stretched out on his bed watching TV and all their bags were packed up and laid out on Sam's bed. Sam crossed the room in four easy strides and started to gather together their things.

"Hey, how was the doctor?"

Sam rolled his eyes and pulled out a fistful of condoms from his back pocket. He held them out to Dean. "Here, there's plenty more where that came from and you'll probably need them more than me."

Dean smirked but put the condoms in his back pocket anyway. "He gave you the safe sex lecture, huh? Did you get to explain to him that the only action you could get was from some angry he-witch who didn't even touch you?"

Sam shot Dean an angry, disapproving look, (what, he was sure, Dean had often referred to as "the bitch face,") and slung a bag over his shoulder. "Real funny, Dean." Sam shifted his weight uncomfortably and then looked down at his feet as a thought occurred to him. "Oh, um, I've been meaning to tell you…" Sam glanced back up at his brother and saw the smirk quickly disappear from his face. "I got myself tested while I was there, you know, for everything, and besides the gonorrhea from the witch, I'm clean."

Realization and embarrassment flitted across Dean's features. "Oh." He hurriedly grabbed the nearest bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Come on, let's get outta here before I'm old again."

"Dean, wait." Sam reached out and grabbed Dean by the arm but Dean shuddered and jerked away. The shudder was so slight that most people wouldn't have noticed it, but he knew his brother better than anyone else on the planet. He dropped his arm back to his side. "Jesus, Dean, am I really that repulsive to you?"

Dean's face fell. "No, of course not, Sam. You're, you're…" He saw Dean's eyes scan down his body and for a second he thought he saw something – guilt maybe? Or sadness? And it was mixed with something else that he couldn't quite identify. Before he could definitively place it though, Dean's back stiffened and his eyes went hard. "You're my brother. And that means more to me than you may ever know. Now help me pack up the car, Sasquatch."

Sam felt crushed as he believed he grasped the hidden meaning in his brother's words. This had to be at least in part because of that drunken kiss in the bar two weeks ago. He obviously knew about Sam's feelings towards him and was attempting to fix it by ignoring it and trying to hide his disgust. Except the problem was, he was doing a really crappy job at it. It might have hurt less if Dean had actually just come right out and said, "I haven't left your perverted ass yet because you're my brother and no matter how messed up you are, it's still my job to protect you, but if we don't get back to not talking about this again soon, I will punch you and leave." At least then it would be out in the open. Sam wanted to say that he was sorry and would never act on his feelings again, but he couldn't bring himself to do that, so he did the only thing he could bring himself to do: lie.

"Dean, you know, back there at that bar when I kissed you, it didn't mean anything. I was drunk and angry…"

Dean held up a hand, telling him to stop. "I know. Don't sweat it."

Dean walked out of the room with the bag he was carrying slung over his shoulder. Sam gathered together the rest of their things and followed. He threw their bags in the trunk and got into the passenger seat.

"So, where we headed?" They didn't have a case yet but by now they'd stayed in the same motel for long enough that they had to move on before their credit cards began to come up as fake.

Dean shrugged. "I dunno, how about Wyoming? I kinda feel like taking a drive."

Given his current mood, "feel like taking a drive" was Deanspeak for "I need some time to sit and think." Sam settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. "Sure. I'm kind of tired; think I'll take a nap. Let me know when it's my turn to drive."

"Okay." Dean popped in his Def Lepard tape, turned it to a reasonable volume so Sam could sleep, and hit the road.

They stopped for the night at a little, rundown motel right off Route 90 in Gillette, Wyoming. Sam set up his laptop and linked it to the motel's wireless internet connection right away to start looking for a case while Dean went out to grab them a late dinner. After about an hour of looking through newspapers and coming up with nada, Sam looked away and rubbed his eyes. Dean was taking an awfully long time with their food. He was beginning to think he should give him a call just to make sure he was okay when Dean finally returned, carrying a clear plastic bag.

"Sorry. It was a bitch finding a place open this late," he growled as he lay out Sam's dinner in front of him, a Cobb salad. "There's your Sam food. Be grateful I got it for you, the waitress was kind of hot and I felt weird having to order a sissy salad." He pulled out his own dinner, an extra greasy double bacon cheeseburger. Sam raised an eyebrow and shook his head. Wasn't it just earlier that day that Dean had sworn off the burgers? Dean met his disapproving look with a shrug. "What? Someone had to balance the order out with your rabbit food." He took a bite. "Find anything yet?"

Sam sighed and turned back to the computer screen. "No, not yet, but I've just mostly been checking local obits, I think I'll broaden my search a little and also move on to actual news stories."

"Good." Dean's mouth was literally almost overflowing with food as he spoke. "You keep looking, I'm going to finish my meal and head out."

Sam opened the top to his salad and grabbed the plastic knife Dean had thrown into the bag for him. "If you wait a few minutes I can finish my salad and come out with you."

"No!" Dean sounded resolute, almost desperate and Sam crinkled his face, feeling confused and hurt. "I mean, I'm not going out out, I just gotta take care of a couple of things really quick."

Sam nodded, feeling suspicious. "Well, great, I could use a trip out of the room. I'll come with and help you get supplies."

Dean shoved the last of his burger in his mouth and quickly dug into his fries. "It's not that kind of run, Sam. Just…trust me, okay? I need to do this alone."

Sam narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning to do?"

"Nothing man, nothing. I just, look, I can't explain, but trust me, it's for the best." He abandoned the rest of his fries and quickly headed for the door. "You can finish my fries if you want them, I'll be back in a few hours." With that, he ducked out the door and Sam, although feeling wildly suspicious, turned back to his laptop and made no move to stop him.

Dean drove with purpose, knowing exactly where he wanted to go. There was a 24-hour diner less than five minutes away from their motel, but he had to lie to Sam about why he'd been gone so long because there was no way he was going to let Sam find out what he was really up to. Castiel thought Dean was bi and apparently so did Bobby, so, he reasoned, maybe that was the key to fixing this thing with Sam. After all, if it smells like a duck… He couldn't deny that he'd had some questionable thoughts about guys over the years and so he couldn't rule out the possibility that he was repressing feelings and taking them out on his rather not unfortunate-looking brother. The thought of going through with this plan he had formulated earlier that day while driving to Wyoming made him slightly nauseas, but Sam was it, all that was left of his family, and Dean was going to go to any lengths to keep the two of them together. He wasn't about to let the way he felt about him drive a wedge between them any more.

There were no gay bars in Gillette, but Dean found a dive called Dimples that looked as good a place as any for his purposes. When he'd canvased the area earlier, it was still early but the gravel parking lot surrounding the dumpy little brick building was already full, so this bar was clearly a popular place for the town to go to drink; he was sure he could find a mo or two if he looked hard enough. He pulled the Impala into the lot and parked in one of the few still empty spots, took a deep breath, and headed inside.

To his surprise, the inside of the bar was pretty clean, and it even looked kind of cool. Everything – floors, walls, tables, ceiling, bar – was made of wood, giving it an old-fashioned, rustic kind of feel while the dance floor and karaoke machine in the front showed that the place had also been recently updated. People were milling around, some in couples or small groups, others hanging back alone. He wondered if and how he could spot a dude who might be looking for another dude for the night. Looking around at the room for a moment, he noticed a few good-looking guys, but fucked if he knew whether or not they were gay and he felt uneasy about the idea of approaching a possibly straight guy and asking him if he could buy him a drink. He settled down on a barstool and looked down at the counter of the bar, for once feeling out of his element in a place full of sin.

The bartender, a heavyset middle-aged guy with slightly thinning hair on the top of his head, turned to Dean. "What can I get you?"

"Just a beer, padre. Corona." The bartender grabbed a bottle out of a small refrigerated section behind the bar, popped the top, and slid it down to Dean. Dean nodded politely at the guy. "Thanks."

He took a swig and felt the refreshing, cool beverage slide down his throat. This was a stupid idea. There was no way he was going to have the balls to hit on another man, and it was unlikely another guy was going to hit on him. Of course he had been hit on by guys in the past, but they were few and far between. He should have just let Sam come out with him so they could kick back and maybe even hustle a few rounds of pool together. They were getting low on funds anyway. He took another swig and thought about maybe heading back to the motel and picking up Sam so they could come back out this way and have a little bit of fun. After all, he'd been leaving Sam alone a lot lately and it wasn't really fair to him when –

"Hey there."

Dean was brought out of his reverie by the sound of a young man's voice. He looked over to his left and saw that it was one of the guys he'd been eyeing up a minute ago from across the room. He had chin length hair that was so dark brown it was almost black, brown-green hazel eyes, a long, slender nose, full lips, and a hard, defined jawline sporting just the slightest bit of stubble. He was wearing a long-sleeved, gray thermal t-shirt and boot-cut blue jeans, looked lean and muscular and, from what he could tell, appeared to be slightly smaller than Dean but he was still by no means a little dude. He was nursing a bottle of the same type of beer Dean had and it made him wonder just how long the guy had been sitting there before Dean noticed him. Damn, did he suck at trying to pick up guys and, as that thought occurred to him he wasn't sure whether he should feel proud or embarrassed about that fact.

"Hey." His voice came out a little lower and gravelly than normal. Shit, he was nervous.

The guy moved a barstool over so he was now sitting right next to Dean and his proximity made Dean's stomach twist just a little. "I noticed you checking me out from across the room and figured I'd come over and say 'hi.' My name's Jim."

"Dean." He should talk more, say something, but his heart was starting to race and his mind went blank.

"So, uh, you want me to buy you a drink?"

His eyes went wide. Come on Dean, keep it together, he told himself. It wasn't a big deal; he could stay in control of the situation. Working to regain his composure, he plastered on his usual bullshit, confident, cocky grin. "Why don't I do the buying?"

Jim smirked. "Ah, you're the take-charge type. I like that."

He placed a hand on Dean's arm. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. This guy was good-looking, but Dean wasn't sure he could go through with this. There was a small amount of excitement he felt at being touched by another man, but it was being overpowered by the self-loathing welling up inside him because of his excitement. He tried to push his negative feelings down. This was ridiculous; there was nothing wrong with being bi. He cringed inwardly and felt like less of a man just thinking about what Dad would have to say about this if he were still alive. Well, what would he say about him having sex with Sam? This was him fixing things, making things better for him and Sam. _Sick fuck! Faggot! Fairy boy!_ Shit.

Dean signaled the bartender. "Can I get three shots of whiskey for me and another Corona for my friend here?"

Jim flashed a wide, good-natured smile. "Nervous?"

Dean shifted a little in his chair and tried on a smirk. "Nah." He picked up his beer and downed it quickly, relaxing his throat a little to let it all slosh down into his stomach. He noticed Jim watching him hungrily out of the corner of his eye and his stomach flipped a little thinking about what Jim probably had on his mind. He set the beer down on the counter and moved his arm out of Jim's grasp to wipe his mouth off on his sleeve.

"I, uh, I get the feeling you don't do this very much."

Thankfully right then the bartender came back with Jim's beer, a bottle of Jack, and three empty shot glasses. He poured the shots in front of Dean and then walked off. Jim picked up his drink, took a swig and looked at Dean expectantly.

"I um," Dean cleared his throat, "to tell you the truth, I don't usually do this with guys."

Jim leaned forward ever so slightly and lowered his voice. "That's okay. I noticed you the second you came in. You're pretty hot, I know you've got to know it, I'm just glad I got to you first."

"First?" Christ, please tell him he didn't have the words 'gay virgin' stamped across his forehead.

"Yeah, I saw a couple other guys eyeing you up too, that's why I came over here so fast."

"A couple of 'em, huh? Thought this wasn't a gay bar."

Jim leaned back a little, looking amused. "It's not, but there are no gay bars around here and us homos have to drink somewhere. Wow, you really don't do this a lot, huh?"

Dean took his first shot and welcomed the familiar burn as the liquid slid down his throat. "Haven't thrown you any lines so far, don't see why I would start now."

Jim cocked an eyebrow. "Well, that's surprisingly refreshing. And in that case, I won't throw you any, either. If you want to drink a little bit to help loosen you up, that's fine, I wouldn't mind sitting around and getting to know you for a little bit, but eventually I'd like it if you wanted to make your way back to my place. Blunt enough for you?"

Dean stared at him, his mouth hanging open in shock. "Perfectly." Shots two and three were downed in a matter of seconds. "Bartender! Another round?"

Jim chuckled as he took another swig of his beer and shook his head. He was probably getting a good laugh over Dean being such a friggin' moron, acting like some unsure, inexperienced teenager. He cursed himself for being so jumpy, but as soon as the bartender poured his shots he still gratefully picked up shot number four and poured it down his throat. He was going to have to drink a lot more if he planned on going anywhere later with Jim.

Jim seemed to find Dean's awkwardness attractive in a weird way, but Dean couldn't stand it; he never felt uncomfortable in bars. Thankfully, as he took shot after shot, he began to feel less awkward and apprehensive. He also found that he stopped recoiling so much as Jim lay experimental touches along his arm, shoulder, and side. An hour later, he downed his ninth shot and smiled at Jim.

"You know you," he lazily pointed at him, "are one good-looking guy."

Jim burst out into peals of laughter. "Well, you're not too bad-looking, yourself, Dean." He gave Dean an appreciative once-over. "I'll bet a guy like you gets to go home with just about anyone he wants."

Dean smirked and shrugged. "Well, not anyone, but, yeah, I get my fair share."

Jim raked his eyes over Dean's body, shamelessly eye-fucking him. "I'll bet you've been with a lot of women."

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess. I'm not sure how many; it's somewhere in the mid-hundreds." He shook his head a little as he continued to laugh to himself. It actually wasn't very funny.

"Oh, really?" He moved his barstool over so close to Dean's that they were nearly touching and then put his lips close to Dean's ear. He could feel Jim's hot breath on his skin as he heard him whisper, "And how many men have you fucked?" Jim leaned back so he could look at Dean's face, a playful smile stretched across his lips.

"One." Sam. His brain was sloshing in the alcohol and the truth had come out before he could think to be evasive or lie. Dean looked down at the bar counter and closed his eyes. Images of his brother flooded his consciousness as he thought of Sam on his back, then on his knees, his hard body moving up and down in fluid motions as he rode Dean's cock. Thinking about it made him instantly hard and his head spun with guilt at the wrongness of it all. He wanted to grab his head to keep the thoughts from splitting his skull open as the familiar words of self-deprecating hatred once again screamed in his head; _Sick fuck! Rapist! Incestuous faggot!_ Instead, he kept his eyes closed, remained perfectly still, and willed himself not to cry.

"Ooh, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Hey, bartender! Another shot for my friend here!" The bartender brought over the whiskey bottle and filled one of Dean's shot glasses, turned, and walked back to the other side of the bar. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I can see the signs of a recent break-up though. This guy meant a lot to you."

Dean grabbed the shot and drank it down, feeling the hot fluid solder his tear ducts shut and cement his face into a composed grin. He put his elbow up on the counter and rested the right side of his head in his hand as he faced Jim. "Nah, I'm fine, don't worry about it. Hey, wanna get outta here?"

Jim gave Dean's body another long, admiring look and then signaled for the bartender for their tab. Dean threw some money down and Jim wrapped his arm around Dean's waist as they headed out of the bar. Dean let him, but as soon as they were out of the bar and in the back alleyway, Dean untangled himself from Jim.

"Hey, I'm not a friggin' chick," he growled.

Jim chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, I know you're not!" He took two steps forward into Dean's personal space and cupped his face in his hands, slowly fingering his masculine jawline. "Goddamn, do I know!" And with that, he sealed his lips over Dean's in a slow, sensual kiss.

Dean froze, his lips unmoving just like when Sam had kissed him two weeks ago. Jim's stubble scratched at Dean's chin as he moved his lips insistently against Dean's, encouraging him to open up for him. He closed his eyes and made himself kiss back, pushing back against those hard, forceful lips. Jim opened his mouth wider, deepening the kiss, and Dean, feeling uncertain, followed his lead and soon felt Jim's tongue snake into his mouth. This was, by far, the most bizarre feeling thing he had ever done, he thought to himself as he let his own tongue dart out and experimentally taste Jim's mouth. He tasted like beer and something else vaguely sour; not a great taste, but not bad, either. This guy was actually a pretty good kisser and Dean began to feel himself actually enjoying the kiss. He unconsciously leaned into Jim a little and Jim responded by gently pushing Dean up against the brick building they'd been standing next to and then moving into his personal space even more, pushing their chests together and running his hands along Dean's arms. Dean felt his body stiffen from the increased contact but willed himself not to move away. He felt a combination of excitement and shame as he finally realized he was really doing this, that he'd come this far, and he was actually enjoying it! He'd never wanted to believe he was even just a little bit gay, but here he was, tongue fucking some guy in an alleyway. And this guy was skilled; he had obviously done this a good many times before. Still, he didn't kiss as good as Sam. Sam was passionate, all hard and needy and so desperately wanting when he kissed him, like Dean was the only person in the world right at that moment, and damn, if that didn't make him so hot that he moaned into Jim's mouth at just the memory of that kiss and – Wait, why the fuck was he thinking about kissing Sam?

Jim's hands began roving from Dean's arms to the hard muscles of his stomach and then he pulled his mouth away, breaking the kiss. "God, you keep moaning like that and we won't even make it back to my place. Mm, I know what I want to do to you."

He pushed his body hard against Dean, shoving him back against the wall again. Dean wasn't used to someone else taking charge like this, it felt strange and he wasn't sure he liked it. It felt good but also wrong at the same time. No, he should be able to enjoy this; it was quite clear by now that he at least liked guys a little bit. But he shouldn't. Where was that coming from? Jim's hand moved unexpectedly from Dean's stomach down to his crotch, slowly rubbing his semi-hard shaft and Dean suddenly began to struggle and push back at Jim in a silent motion telling him to stop. He pulled his mouth off of Dean's but kept his hand exactly where it was and continued to rub.

"Relax Dean, it's alright. I just want to get you good and ready because I'm going to suck your dick."

He's going to what? Not thinking, he acted on instinct and punched him hard in the jaw and, when he was still standing, moved his leg in one swift motion, taking Jim's legs out from under him and making him hit the asphalt. Hard.

"What the hell's going on here?" Dean turned to the loud, unfamiliar voice behind him. It belonged to one of three young men who had just recently emerged from the bar. They eyed the scene in front of them and looked to the man now lying on the ground. "Jim?" one of them, a big blonde with broad shoulders, gasped. Then he turned his attention on Dean. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? You just like going around beating up gay people? The fuck did he do to you?"

Dean held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "I can explain."

The three men began advancing menacingly towards Dean. "Yeah, explain it to my fist!" One of the other men in the group screamed as they still continued to approach. Dean shot them an apologetic smile, and then turned and ran in the opposite direction, towards the Impala.


	10. Night Flight

Sam was lying in bed at the motel. He'd found a pretty interesting sounding case a couple of hours ago and then, after some channel surfing, had given up on the idea of waiting up for Dean. He was probably out nailing some chick and wouldn't be back until morning. And that was fine, Sam told himself, he wasn't going to be jealous over that. At first it had bothered him that Dean hadn't asked him to come with him to whatever bar he was heading to, but then it occurred to him that Dean probably hadn't asked him to come with because he wasn't planning on going to a bar, or, at least, not a regular one. Dean knew of Sam's distaste for strip clubs and brothels and the way Dean had been so on edge lately, it would make sense for him to try and bury himself inside the closest willing warm body to try and to get some release. He felt anger well up inside him thinking about how willing Dean was to give himself over to just about anyone but him before he pushed it down and reminded himself that no one should want to give themselves over to their own brother and then climbed into bed.

He had been asleep for no more than fifteen minutes when Dean burst into the room. "Sam!"

Sam opened his eyes and looked at his brother. Dean was walking with purpose through their room, heading straight towards him and looking frantic. Sam immediately sat up, fully alert. "Dean, what's wrong?"

"Pack your crap, Sam, we're getting outta here!"

Dean picked up his duffel and began throwing random clothes into it. Sam leapt out of bed and began doing the same, knowing that Dean's urgency could only mean that they were under some kind of attack. "What's going on? What happened?"

Dean shoved the last article of clothing from a dresser drawer into his bag and headed into the bathroom. He peeked his head out around the doorframe for a second. "What's going on is we gotta get out of here and hit the road in the next five minutes." Then he ducked completely into the bathroom and disappeared from Sam's sight.

"What is it? A demon?"

"No."

"Then what? A Shapeshifter? Werewolf? Angel? Vampire?"

"None of the above."

Sam stopped packing and threw his bag onto the bed. He was tired of Dean always cutting him out of things, heading off without telling him where he was going, bossing Sam around when he wouldn't even tell him what the hell was going on. Dean must have heard the lack of rustling going on in the room because he peeked his head back out from the bathroom and said, "Come on, Sam, hurry it up, we don't have much time."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"No. I'm not doing anything until you tell me what is so urgent that we have to leave right now in the middle of the night."

"Sam, I told you, we don't have time –"

"Yeah, I don't give a crap, Dean. What's after us that's so damn bad that we have to tuck tail and run in the middle of the night?" Dean finally fully emerged from the bathroom, zipped up his bag, then grabbed Sam's and began packing it for him. Sam threw up his hands in frustration. "You're unbelievable! Okay, you know what, I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."

Dean stopped packing and glared at him but Sam stood resolutely still, arms crossed against his chest. At seeing Sam's stubbornness, Dean faltered and his expression changed to one of shame and embarrassment. He looked down at the shirt he was holding in his hand. "I – I think I might be wanted for a hate crime."

"A what?" Okay, that was not what he'd expected Dean to say. It actually sounded so ridiculous that, despite his best efforts, he couldn't help his face from twitching into a lopsided grin. What could Dean have possibly done to make anyone think he'd committed a hate crime?

"You heard me," Dean growled. He threw Sam's bag back down on the bed. "There, I told you, now pack your stuff." With that, he grabbed his own duffel and headed out of the motel room.

Sam dutifully did as he was told, but there was no way he was going to let this go. Dean was really starting to worry him. Lately he'd been on edge, erratic, and more self-destructive than usual, but now he was committing hate crimes? He threw the last of their bags in the car, slammed the trunk, and jumped into the passenger seat. Dean tore out of the parking lot, hands firmly gripping the steering wheel, eyes ridiculously focused on the road, face firmly set in a look of rage and determination. He was simultaneously beautiful and terrifying when he looked like this and right then, the terrifying was winning out. Sam forced himself to wait for almost an hour, until he was fairly certain that they were out of immediate danger from anyone who might be chasing them, before he spoke.

"Pull the car over, Dean."

"If you have to go, there should be a rest stop somewhere within the next thirty miles or so –"

"That's not my problem. Just pull over!"

Dean sighed heavily but did as asked. The car came to rest on a wide, gravel shoulder so big it could easily be turned into another driving lane with the wide, open road to the left and a tall, grassy hill to right. As soon as the car came to a complete stop, Sam got out and began walking towards the trunk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean roll his eyes before he also got out of the car and followed Sam to the rear, where he standing in front of the locked trunk.

"Come on, Sam, what are you doing, it's the middle of the night! Just get back in the car and we'll talk in the morning."

Sam shot his brother with an angry, defiant glare. "No, we won't. Dean. So we're going to talk right here, right now. We're not going anywhere else until you tell me what the hell your deal is!" He watched as Dean looked at him with an open-mouthed stare, eyes wide and panicked. After about thirty seconds of this, Dean turned and began slowly making his way back to the driver's side door of the Impala. Sam couldn't believe it. They couldn't separate, Dean knew that, and he had had a hard time believing that he would actually try to leave him there. "So, what, you wake me up and make me leave with you in the middle of the night and then leave when I tell you I need to know what's going on?"

"You don't need to know about this!"

"Yes, I do! Man, you've been freaking me out lately. You're reckless, violent and downright scary, and that's when you're not hunting! Something big is going on with you and I can't help you if you won't let me in!"

Dean got into Sam's face, his jaw painfully tensed, eyes hard and angry. "Who said I needed your help? You can't fucking help me, alright? This is out of your control!"

"Just tell me what the problem is so I at least know what I'm up against!"

Their faces were now just inches apart from each other and Dean backed up a few steps and held up his hands in what looked like a surrendering gesture. "Why? You can't help it and you can't change it. But you're right; I'm not in a good place. And I don't want to end up hurting you. Just get back in the car and I'll leave you off at the nearest town."

Sam felt a horrible stab of pain at hearing those words and knowing that his brother, once again, wanted to be away from him. He laughed bitterly and advanced a few steps towards him so they were once again in each other's space. "That might be the dumbest thing you've ever said. We can't separate, Dean! Like it or not, you're stuck with me, so you better tell me the problem so we can work this out!"

Sam felt himself stumbling backwards as Dean shoved him, hard. "I'm the problem, alright?" He rested his forehead in his hand and looked down. "I'm the problem."

Sam stood still, in shock. "What are you talking about?"

"This, all of this," he gestured vaguely into the air, "it's my fault. It's all my fault."

It was infuriating how decidedly cryptic his brother could be while he was in the midst of a bout of self-loathing, but Dean's face was so broken that Sam couldn't bring himself to be angry. "What's your fault?"

When Dean once again looked up, Sam spied a single tear rolling down his cheek before Dean scrubbed his hand over his face, quickly wiping it away. "I – I think I like guys."

About five different emotions shot through Sam one right after another. For about half a second, all he could feel was shock; that was the last thing he expected to hear Dean say. Had he just heard him right? Shock quickly gave way by disbelief. There was no way he really just heard those words come out of his mouth. Dean, the sometimes whorish womanizer…liked guys? This feeling was almost immediately followed by hope, which instantly changed to elation. Sam was a guy. Not only that, but he was a healthy-looking guy, he knew. He watched what he ate and his body was muscular and firm from working out, not to mention all the exercise they got on their hunts. Could Dean find him attractive? Maybe he even enjoyed their time together a few weeks ago? Maybe that was even when he first realized he liked guys? Although these feelings didn't go away, they were rapidly supplemented by overwhelming shame. Dean had probably been struggling with this for a long time. It was completely unrealistic, wishful thinking to believe that he might have been responsible for some sexual awakening inside of him. Not only that, but if Dean's been coming to terms with this for such a long time, then Sam might have actually unknowingly taken advantage of him a few weeks ago when he had drunkenly attacked his poor, sexually confused brother.

Sam was feeling his face twitching into a smile, which he desperately worked to repress. This really wasn't the time to be carried away in flights of fancy over his brother. "There's nothing wrong with that," he heard himself say. Dean had caught the smile though, and immediately looked like he was going to punch Sam. Shit. Of course, Dean knew about Sam's feelings for him. He probably knew exactly what Sam was thinking and was trying to choke back vomit. Then a disturbing thought occurred to him, permanently wiping the smile from his face. He furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Wait a minute, is this…" he put his hands in his pockets and straightened his posture, "are you…beating up gay guys?"

"I didn't mean to!" Dean barked.

Sam couldn't help laughing a bit in spite of himself. This was such a strange conversation, it felt like out of a dream. "What?"

"It was… I don't know! It was sort of an accident. I was making out with this guy behind a bar –"

"You were what?" Sam's body practically tingled with jealousy. That wasn't so funny. Thinking about some guy putting his hands and lips on Dean was about a hundred times worse than thinking about him doing it with a woman.

Dean ducked his head for a second before he looked back up. "Yeah. So, we were…kissing, and he said something and, I don't know, something in me just snapped and I just hit him before I even realized I was doing it. Then his friends came out of the bar and started chasing me. I thought I'd lost them on some of the back roads, but I wasn't sure, so that's why we hightailed it outta there."

"What did he say to you?" Sam could only imagine what kind of crack the guy must have made at Dean to get him to react that way.

"He…" Dean looked down at his shoes and scuffed his boot against the gravel for a second. "He said…" He growled, lifted his head, and looked at something over Sam's right shoulder. "He was going to suck my dick."

Sam couldn't help but give him a smiling, open-mouthed gape. "And that's why you beat him up? Do you usually beat people up when they say that to you?"

Dean glared at him. "It's not funny, Sam. I don't feel good about it. It was, I don't know, like a reflex or something. And I didn't beat him up; I just punched him and took out his legs from under him."

The imagined scene was unfolding in front of him and Sam's body was literally shaking as he tried to contain his laughter. The idea of Dean being so freaked out that he would do something like that was hilarious. Also, some small, irrational part of him couldn't help thinking, "serves that guy right," and was really enjoying the fact that this mystery man didn't get the chance to enjoy Dean's body. He turned and walked back over to the passenger seat and climbed back in to the Impala. Dean continued to scowl at him for another few long seconds before he climbed into the driver's side and they once again took off, driving at a more reasonable speed away from Gillette.

"I found a case," Sam said, breaking the tense silence in the car.

"Where?"

"Montrose, Colorado." He lifted himself off the seat so he could pull the article he had printed out at the motel from his back pocket. He unfolded the crinkled piece of paper and scanned through it to give Dean the highlights. "Candace Adams, thirty-one was found strangled in her home. No footprints, fingerprints, or signs of forced entry. In fact, the house was still armed when the police came in to investigate, and the neighbors all said they hadn't heard or seen anything suspicious during the time the attack would have taken place."

Dean shrugged. "Could be our kind of gig, or could just be some angry ex-boyfriend who knew how to cover his tracks and set the alarm before he left the house."

"Yeah, well, all the same, I think we'd better check it out."

"Sure, okay. Get out your map and tell me where I need to turn to get off this highway."

Sam got out the map and flashlight from the glove compartment. "We'll stay on 90 for a while, until we hook into Route 25 going south. When we do that, I think we should stop at another motel so we can rest for a little before we hit the road again."

Dean nodded and then turned on the radio while Sam hunched down in his seat, rested his head against the window of the car, and closed his eyes.

.

Dean charged into the motel room ahead of Sam, looking surly as he threw his duffel down on one of the beds. Sam trudged in behind him and threw his bag down on the other bed.

"What's got you in such a huffy mood?" Sam asked confusedly as he shrugged out of his jacket.

"Nothing!"

He folded his jacket and managed to throw it over the chair several feet away. "Uh-huh. Clearly."

"It's just…you're in my space."

"Dude, I'm always in your space; it's kind of the way we live."

Before he even realized Dean had moved, he was suddenly about six inches away from his face, arms wrapped around Sam's waist. "Yeah, well, I can't stand it anymore."

Sam felt one of Dean's arms move from around his waist to the back of his head, holding him in place as he brought their lips together. Sam put his hands against Dean's chest and pushed him back, then turned his head and looked away. "Um, Dean, what do you think you're doing?"

"Sam, I just can't take it anymore." He leaned in and nipped Sam's ear. "I want you so bad; you're seriously the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen."

Sam jumped back in surprise. "What?"

"You heard me."

Just seeing the way Dean looked at him so hungrily was beginning to make Sam hard. "Are you sure? I didn't think you wanted this."

Dean grabbed his hand and put it on the crotch of his jeans so Sam could feel that he was already semi-hard. "I want this. Now come on and fuck me already."

Excitement and arousal shot through his body and the only word he could think was, yes, as he grabbed Dean and crushed their bodies and lips together. They both began frantically moving their hands up and down the other's back and arms, feeling hard bodies underneath clothes as they passionately kissed each other so hard that their teeth clinked together more than once. God, Sam needed more contact, needed to touch Dean's skin. He quickly slipped Dean's jacket off his shoulders and threw it to the floor, then broke the kiss so he could take off Dean's button-down shirt. He didn't feel like dealing with the buttons; he was finally realizing years of pent-up sexual energy and he needed Dean naked, now. He grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled, ripping the shirt free of the buttons.

Dean looked at him in shock. "Sam?"

"I'll get you a new one." Dean was still wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt underneath. Why did they always have to dress in so many layers? "Lift your arms," he growled.

Dean immediately did as directed and Sam lifted the shirt away from his body. Damn, he was sexy. Sam had literally seen him shirtless thousands of times, but couldn't help marveling at how beautiful he still looked every time. His chest and stomach were perfectly toned, his skin flawless and tight. He wrapped one arm around Dean's bad and placed the other hand behind his head so he could bring their mouths together in another needy, crushing kiss. He gently bit Dean's lower lip just enough to make it slightly swollen and sensitive, then swiped the spot with his tongue. Dean moaned into his mouth and opened wide, practically begging for Sam's tongue to fill his mouth. Sam hungrily caressed Dean's tongue with him own. Dean pushed on Sam's chest and for a second he worried that Dean wanted him to stop until he felt his hands quickly working the buttons of Sam's shirt open. Sam responded by moving his hands to Dean's pants to unbutton and unzip his jeans, which he then forcefully pushed down Dean's hips, and they fell to the floor. Dean finished with his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor and then pulled him in close, pressing their bodies firmly together as they continued to kiss. Sam moaned as he felt Dean's overheated flesh finally come into contact with his own. After a few seconds he finally broke the kiss and stood back, staring seriously into Dean's lust-blown, green eyes as he quickly unbuckled his belt, then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, pushing them and his boxers down around his ankles. Dean watched him hungrily before stripping off his own boxers. When they were both finally naked, Sam eyed him up appreciatively, starting from his beautiful face, down to his finely sculpted arms, chest and stomach, then finally to his large, fully-hard erection. Without much of a thought, he tackled Dean and they both landed hard on the bed. Sam bit Dean's earlobe, eliciting a moan that made his heart jump and his cock twitch.

"Oh god, Dean," he whispered against his ear before licking the shell, "you sound so hot! Tell me what you want. You want me, Dean? Do you want me to fuck you?"

He moved his mouth down to Dean's neck, kissing and sucking hard enough to leave a bruise and Dean moaned almost embarrassingly loud. "Oh, mm, god! Fuck yes, Sam!"

Sam smiled against Dean's soft skin and moved his mouth down lower to his chest where he once again kissed, sucked, and then nibbled on him hard enough to leave another mark. He wanted to mark Dean as his, wanted to walk around the next day and see the bruises he left on his body and let everyone know that Dean was completely his and no one else's. He licked his right hand than then wrapped it around Dean's cock, pumping quickly as he continued to work his mouth down his body, which just made Dean moan even louder.

"Oh god, Sam! Mm, Sam! Sam! Sam!"

"Sam!" A hard, sudden shake to Sam's shoulder made him jump and hit his head against something hard and glass.

"What the…" He looked around wildly for a moment from the dashboard of the Impala, to the dingy white building in front of him, to his still fully-clothed, smirking brother.

"Dude, you gotta tell me about your dream!"

Sam's cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment but he tried to make his face into an expression of innocence and confusion. "What? I wasn't dreaming about anything."

Dean chuckled. "Well, clearly. You sounded like you were having a hell of a time; I felt guilty having to wake you up. Who was it? Threesome with Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston? Some good hate sex going on there, whew!"

"What? No!"

Dean playfully hit him on the arm, still smirking. "Come on, you can tell me!"

"No, no one – nothing!"

"Seriously, you don't have to be embarrassed; I won't make fun of you. What, was it a guy or something?"

Sam was panicked. "No, of course not!"

Dean grimaced. "Alright, whatever." He cleared his throat. "We're here; first motel off Route 25. You want to come into the office with me to check-in?"

Sam looked down to his lap for a second. He was still rock hard. "Um, nah. You go; I'll grab our bags while you get our keys."

Dean picked up on Sam's problem and smirked once again. "Dude, you seriously need to get laid." With that, he shook his head in amusement and got out of the car. Sam watched him swagger towards the manager's office and sighed. The minute he finds out his brother is bi-sexual he goes ahead and has a sex dream about him. As if Dean would even want that; being bi is one thing, it's a whole other matter entirely to want to have a homosexual, incestuous relationship with your brother and only remaining blood relative. How did things become like this? How long has he felt this way? Could he ever make it stop? Well, other than the loud, embarrassing noises that he apparently made in his sleep, he supposed he could dream about Dean all he wanted, just as long as he never acted on it. Speaking of Dean, he was taking an awfully long time in the office. A quick look through the large window in the front showed Dean leaning over the counter and grinning widely at a pretty, petite girl with long, straight brown hair who, judging by her body language and the way she kept flashing her cleavage, was rather interested in Dean. Well, that was certainly helping his erection go away. Sam groaned and let his head fall back against his headrest, hating his jealousy. He'd been jealous over every single one of Dean's women since around the time he was sixteen, and it seemed likely that it wasn't ever going to go away. He got out of the car, opened the trunk, and grabbed their duffels. He was going to have to walk into the office to pry Dean away from the clerk so he could get into their room. And Sam wanted to get into the room as soon as possible so he could fall back onto his bed and enter the only world in which he could love Dean the way he really wanted to.


	11. Deadly Secrets

They got back on the road early the next morning and, much to Sam's relief, without Dean banging the desk clerk. Of course, some of that might have been because of how Sam had charged into the office, glared at the clerk, and then possessively tugged Dean by the elbow, effectively hauling him out of the lobby. At the time, Dean had just given the girl a winning smile, winked, and thanked her for the keys, then shot Sam a "what the hell" look the minute they were out of the office and walking to their room, but they hadn't talked about it. They weren't talking much so far during the car ride down to Montrose, either. That wasn't necessarily unusual; they did a lot of driving and there's only so much you can find to talk about with someone who you literally spend nearly every minute of every day with, but the silence was making Sam uneasy. He was sure Dean didn't want to talk about anything that happened last night but the heavy tension in the car told him that they probably needed to. Dean was clearly trying to escape the feeling that filled the car, probably along with the inevitable talk coming, by making frequent stops to fill up their still pretty full tank, add more snacks to their growing pile of food cluttering up the backseat, and use the bathroom way more often than any human should need to. After his many sex dreams about Dean last night though, Sam was more than grateful to be let out of the car as often as possible so he could keep himself from pouncing on his brother and acting out at least one of his many fantasies.

They had been on the road for about seven hours now and Dean had already made his way through his Def Lepard mix, then moved on to Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motorhead, Metallica, Rolling Stones, and had just switched back again to Def Lepard. "Coming Under Fire" started playing and Sam felt as if he might actually die from torture if he had to listen to it again. He hastily turned off the tape player and then stretched, trying to look casual, and turned to Dean. "So, where you want to start when we get to Montrose?"

Dean jumped a little at the sound of Sam's voice. He had been so deep in thought that he'd almost forgotten Sam was there. "Huh?"

Sam shot him one of his usual concerned looks that he saved for when he knew something was wrong but knew better than to ask about it. "Uh, where do you want to start when we get to Montrose?"

"Oh." Sam must not have liked the silence between them anymore than he did, Dean thought. Sometimes being on the open road for hours on end was the most relaxing, wonderful feeling in the world and other times it was pure torture. Torture like right then when Dean was stuck thinking about a dozen different things that he would have much rather forgotten. For one, he was still thinking about last night. He felt awful for beating up that poor guy. Jim might have been a little aggressive for his taste, but he still seemed like a pretty cool dude. Also, Dean didn't know if he was ready to go there with a guy just yet, but if he had let him, that guy probably would have given some pretty good head. He was almost wishing he had because it would have helped to remedy this sexual tension he was feeling the whole car ride with Sam sitting right beside him, which brought him to problem number two. He was now to the point where Sam made him hard just by being near him and Dean was having to make a bunch of extra stops just so he could keep a level head and resist the urges of his fingers to touch him.

And, thinking of Sam, what was up with him last night? First he friggin' smirked at him when he came out and told him he was bi, which was a real dick thing to do. It was hard for him to come out and say that to anyone, let alone Sam, and he never would have said it at all if he thought he'd had any other choice. With Sam demanding answers like he was though, he knew that his options were to tell Sam about his feelings for him, tell him he was bi, or let him leave and walk straight to the devil. Telling him that he was bi seemed the most sensible, least damaging thing to do at that moment and he never thought that sensitive, touch-feely, tell-me-your-feelings-and-give-me-a-hug Sam would want to make fun of him for something like that. And then there was that weird thing back at the motel where he gave the desk clerk the cold shoulder. The clerk thing wasn't a huge loss; he wasn't all that interested anyway, even if she was hot. But still, Sam was acting strange.

"Any ideas?" Sam prompted again.

Dean shook his head, trying to bring himself back to the present. "I don't know, motel, maybe grab something to eat, then head back to the room and do a little digging online, maybe start interviewing the vic's family tomorrow?"

Sam nodded his head. "Sounds good."

They sat there, mostly in silence but at times trying to make awkward conversation, for the next hour and a half until they finally got to Montrose. By the time they pulled in to the Blue Fox Motel, they both practically jumped from the car the moment Dean cut the ignition.

"I'll go check-in," Sam hurriedly mumbled as he powerwalked around the car.

"Yeah, I'll get our bags," Dean said, though he doubted his brother heard him as he had already practically sprinted halfway across the parking lot away from him.

Dean grumbled as he grabbed their few belongings and a small assortment of weapons from the trunk. Ever since Chuck wrote that story about them, things had just gotten worse and worse between them. Although, really, he knew he couldn't honestly blame Chuck for what had happened. Sam was right; he didn't make them do anything. He had wanted to fuck Sam. Him. And the blame was his and no one else's. But if things kept going the way they were, Dean had to wonder how much longer their professional relationship as hunters or even their brotherly relationship was going to last without some serious complications.

Finding out who they should interview first was as easy as checking Candace Adams' obit. She had no husband, boyfriend, or children and her closest living relative was her sister. Digging a little deeper in her life yielded no arrests, possible enemies, or any reason why anyone would want her dead. Her being so squeaky clean was probably going to make the investigation a little more difficult to solve, and Dean was thankful for it. As long as they were actively hunting something it usually helped to take Dean's mind, at least a little bit, off of wanting to jump Sam. At the moment, they were both sitting on their beds with their laptops in their laps looking up information.

"Hey, check this out." Sam turned his laptop screen towards Dean and revealed the bruised, bare throat of someone who it looked been strangled with something long and slender. "Look at these striation marks," he said, gesturing to the thin, dark line of heavy bruising at about the middle of the young woman's throat.

"Huh. What do you suppose could have made that?"

Sam wrinkled his brow and turned the laptop screen back towards him. "I'm not sure. A rope, maybe?"

Dean shook his head. "Would have to be a pretty thin rope."

Sam shrugged. "It'll probably make more sense once we find out what we're dealing with."

"Yeah, about that, any ideas so far?"

"Well, it didn't seem to want to eat her, so that narrows it down a bit. But still, this could be any number of things; vengeful spirit, witch, demon, shapeshifter, you name it."

Dean nodded. "So we just gotta find a reason why someone would wanna gank Miss Vanilla and go after it. I mean, whatever it is could be doing someone else's dirty work."

Sam raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Maybe, but I think it's a little too early to start making up any theories just yet."

Dean ran a hand down his face. Yeah, it was a little early for theories, but he was running out of things to say about the case. So much for keeping the tension out of the room by keeping up a conversation about hunting. He slammed his laptop shut and was just about to suggest they go out to dinner when Sam pruned his face up into a pensive look.

"Dean." Sam looked up at him and once again turned the laptop screen towards him. Now he was now seeing the same strangled neck, but this time the camera was panned out enough that he could see the girl's whole face, neck, and chest. Her eyes were closed and she showed no other signs of trauma aside from the hideous, dark marks on her neck. He shot Sam a look that said, 'what the hell am I looking at?' and Sam pointed to a thin chain with a large, onyx stone hanging loosely from the woman's neck. "Look at the necklace she's wearing. Now, it's thin, like…"

"As thin as the marks around her neck," Dean finished for him. "You think someone strangled her with her own chain? That thing doesn't look strong enough not to break with marks that dark on her neck."

"Exactly, you're right, it doesn't, but what if it wasn't a person who strangled her?"

"Then what? The necklace?" Dean straightened up. "So, you're thinking cursed object?"

Sam turned the laptop back around to himself and stared at the police photograph once again. "I mean, maybe." He started hitting a bunch of keys feverishly as he spoke. "If it is, we should head down to the station first thing and see if we can get it out of the evidence locker. The width of the marks seem to match…here we go!"

He turned the computer around again and Dean was surprised to find the first photo that he had seen before with a picture of the chain of the necklace superimposed over the marks on the victim's neck. They fit perfectly. "How did you do that?" Sam just grinned and turned the screen back towards himself and Dean smirked. "Well, I guess that Stanford education and your zero point zero hook-up rate in high school ended up being good for something after all."

Sam scowled at Dean and looked down. The now familiar awkwardness began to creep back into the room. He stood up and backed towards the door ever so slightly. "So, you ready for dinner? I saw a diner down the street just a little ways down the road as we were coming up here."

Sam shut his own laptop, got up, and grabbed his jacket. "Sure, sounds good."

When they reached the doorway together, they stared at each other awkwardly.

"Oh, ah…" Sam cricked his neck to the side and motioned for Dean to go first.

Dean stepped through the doorway and saw Sam lean backwards so they wouldn't even rub shoulders as they left the room. They drove in silence, hid behind their menus at the diner, ate quietly, and headed back to the motel room. Dean almost felt as if he was going to scream but he tried to ignore it, still weakly holding on to the desperate hope that if enough time passed, things would eventually quiet down. All he had to do was quiet the raging nymphomania he was feeling towards his brother and keep Sam from finding out about it before it ruined their relationship. And he had to successfully do that because Sam was all he had.

When they got back to the motel room, Sam spent an eternity in the bathroom while Dean settled down on the bed and watched some TV. He was well into the middle of "Boogey Man" when Sam finally made his way out of the bathroom still fully dressed and settled down on the bed beside him. Neither of them changed into comfortable clothes for the night much anymore; with angels, demons, horsemen, and probably other hunters (if Sam's run-in with some of their old buddies when they separated a while back was any indication,) after them, it seemed best to just be prepared to have to jump up and run in the middle of the night if need be.

As soon as Sam was back in the room, Dean was once again uncomfortable. He had seen this movie about ten times already and wasn't really into it and he didn't have any guns or knives that hadn't been cleaned or sharpened more than a week ago.

He stretched and gave an exaggerated yawn. "Well, I'm going to bed."

Sam lay his long body down on his own bed and turned out his lamp. "Yeah, me too."

It was only 9:30 but Dean put the remote on the nightstand, rolled onto his stomach and tried willing himself to go to sleep.

The next morning, when they finally stepped into the office of the lead investigator involved with the case, the man looked impossibly confused to see two federal agents in his office. The portly, middle-aged, balding man sat at his desk in his uniform that looked about a size too small and folded his hands as he sat staring at them before finally asking, "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"We're here about the Candace Adams case," Sam said in his best official tone of voice.

"Um, okay. What about it?"

"We'd like to see the evidence collected from the crime scene."

The investigator sighed and threw up his hands. "What evidence? I mean, I can show you the crime scene photos, but there wasn't much evidence to collect. The crime scene was clean."

"What about Miss Adams' personal affects?" Dean asked, beginning to feel slightly agitated.

"Oh." The investigator looked really bewildered now but he stood up, moved slowly around the two men, opened the door to his office, and then gestured for them to follow. "Sure, right this way." The three of them made their way through several offices before finally stepping into a quiet room filled with a desk at the front entrance and then behind it shelves upon shelves of boxes. The man stopped at the first row of shelves, reached awkwardly to the very top one, pulled down a box marked with the victim's name, and handed it to Sam. Sam held it, looking like he was assessing the weight, and frowned.

"Here it all is, guys. I gotta tell you though, I don't think you're going to find much that's gonna help you in there. We couldn't even find a single fiber or piece of hair on her clothes. Why does the FBI care about this, anyway?"

"We're uh," Sam thought fast on his feet, "we're looking at a couple other cases in other states, think there might be some kind of connection."

The man gave him a single, slow nod. "Like a psycho serial killer? Or a trained assassin, maybe?"

Sam shrugged. "Honestly, we're not sure yet; that's why we're chasing the leads."

The man shook his head, then went over to the desk beside Sam and grabbed a box of latex gloves, offering them to Sam and Dean. Dean got his gloves on pretty quickly but Sam struggled to get his large hands to fit inside. Finally, Dean stepped around Sam and grabbed the evidence box from the desk where Sam had set it down to struggle with his gloves, opened it up and smirked at Sam.

"Why don't I take this one on, eh, big guy?" He quickly rooted through everything in the box and then frowned. "Where's the necklace?"

The investigator looked at Dean as if he was speaking a foreign language. "Necklace?"

"The – the necklace she was wearing when she was found. The strangulation marks matched the width and markings of the chain."

Now the man looked at Dean as if he was half-mad and sighed. "You're telling me you came all the way out here for that? We looked at that chain and it was far too dainty to be responsible for Miss Adams' death. The pattern has to be some coincidence."

"Where is it?" Dean felt like he might rocket through the ceiling just knowing that the stupid cops might have let a cursed object leave the station and go to God only knows where. "If it's not in evidence, it has to be somewhere." He felt a large, warm hand firmly clamp itself on his shoulder and knew instantly without even having to look up that it was Sam silently warning him to calm down.

"The, ah, necklace along with her other jewelry was sent back to her sister, Laurie Pickett. I can get you an address if you'd like to get in touch with her." The man was now glancing shifty-eyed back and forth between the two men, obviously not knowing what to make of their insistence to see this necklace.

Sam nodded courteously at the man and removed his hand from Dean's shoulder. "That would be great, thanks."

"Why don't you guys put everything away here and I'll be right back with that address."

Sam smiled politely. "Sure." The minute the investigator was out the door, he took the box out of Dean's hands and placed it back on the desk. "You gotta calm down."

"Calm down?" Dean spluttered, feeling outright furious for reasons he didn't fully understand. Normally he would be annoyed with the cops, but he'd figured out a long time ago that they sucked at doing a hunter's job. He lowered his voice though, just to make sure no one passing by the evidence room might overhear him. "These douchebags might have let a cursed object out into the world and I'm supposed to calm down?"

"Might have," Sam assured him in a gratingly even tone. "We're not even completely sure if that's what we're dealing with yet. Look, we'll go over to this Laurie Pickett's house, talk to her, get the necklace and destroy it. No big deal."

Dean rolled his eyes, closed the evidence box, and slid it back onto the shelf. They might go over to Laurie Pickett's house, but he seriously doubted it wouldn't be a big deal. Since when was anything in their lives ever that easy?

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were sitting in Laurie Pickett's living room on a pink couch covered in a hideous flower design, listening to the woman ramble on about her sister while she cried, blew her nose and held her husband's hand. Well, they were half-listening. Mostly though, they were both staring at her neck, upon which hung their cursed necklace.

"It was just so awful," the woman cried out. "I mean, she was having such a rough time."

Sam leaned forward, either feigning interest or possibly seeing some new option to pursue in the investigation that didn't involve ripping that chain right off the woman's neck and setting it ablaze in the living room. "What do you mean she was having a rough time?"

"Well, she was having a bad day at work the day she died. Her boss told her last week that she was going to have to fire this woman who worked under her in her department and Candace was having such a time of it because this woman was a single mother with four kids and she knew that firing her was going to just ruin her life. She had just typed up the pink slip at the end of the day and called me on her way home from work. It couldn't have been a half-hour later when she was attacked. I just wish she'd had a good last day!"

Sam pulled a sympathetic face and gave her his infamous puppy-dog eyes. "Did this woman know she was about to be fired? Could she have possibly been angry with Candace and wanted to get revenge?"

Laurie pulled her face out of her tissue and shook her head emphatically. "Oh no! There was no way. Candace was keeping it a secret from everyone. In fact, she waited so long to type up the formal slip because she kept hoping her boss would change her mind, but she never did."

Sam twitched his face up into the semblance of a smile. "Okay, thank you. Uh, one last thing; I couldn't help but admire your necklace. Where did you get it?"

The woman absent-mindedly touched the chain. "Oh, this? It's a family heirloom. It was our grandmother's and it was put up when she died. My sister only recently found it and started wearing it. The police let me have it back after she passed."

Dean leaned forward and tried for a smile. "Oh well, that's – that's –" Creepy. "Nice. That's nice. So, your grandmother was the first person to own the necklace?"

Laurie looked at him confusedly, obviously wondering at the sudden interest in the seemingly ordinary piece of jewelry. "Um, I think so. Her husband gave it to her as an anniversary gift one year."

"And they had a relatively happy marriage I take it?"

Dean wasn't entirely sure why he asked this question, but it had a noticeable effect of Laurie. Her face darkened and she looked even visibly more upset than before. "I'd rather not talk about if it's all the same to you. In fact, if you're done asking me questions, I'd like to get back to making lunch for my family."

"Of course," Sam answered in an apologetic tone. Both men rose from the couch and let themselves out through the front door.

As soon as they were out of the house and making their way back to the Impala, Dean shook his head at Sam. "So, Candace started wearing the necklace not long before she died. I gotta say, I'm liking your theory about a cursed object more and more."

"Yeah, but if the necklace belonged to their grandmother and no one else touched it before it reached Candace, who could have put a curse on it?"

Dean shrugged. "Maybe the grandmother."

Sam snorted. "You think this family is hiding some powerful witch in its past?"

"Hey, maybe. Did you see how she kicked us out the minute we started asking about her? She's definitely hiding something."

Sam looked doubtful. "Yeah, maybe."

"Well, either way, the necklace was hers; I say we dig up some dirt on Grandma."

Dean dropped Sam off at the motel and went to get them both some lunch. As he pulled back into the parking lot of the motel with a garden salad and a chicken fried steak, however, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. He never knew how or why, but whenever something was wrong with Sam, Dean oftentimes felt it with an irrational wave of anxiety, exactly like the one he was feeling right at that moment. Without grabbing the food, he sprinted to the door and let himself into the motel room, only to find it empty.

"Sam?"

There was no response. He raced inside and threw the bathroom door open, but it too was empty, so he raced outside and shouted his brother's name, now feeling crazed with worry.

"Dn." He heard a muffled noise from around the corner and quickly ran towards it. In front of the soda machine, Sam lay on the ground, weakly gasping for air and pulling at some invisible force around his throat. Before him, a semi-transparent young woman stood staring down at him with a half-smile on her face.

"Oh, you bitch!" Dean almost always kept a small vile full of rock salt in his pocket. He grabbed it, popped the top, and threw its contents at the spirit, making her vanish instantly. The moment she disappeared Sam gasped, greedily taking in lungfuls of air. Dean ran to Sam and crouched down beside him, then cradled his head between his hand and thigh.

"Sam? You okay?"

"Yeah." Sam gasped for air again. "I'm good." his voice was barely a raspy whisper.

Dean threw an arm underneath Sam's armpits to help him up. "Come on, I'm outta salt, so we gotta get back inside the motel before she comes back!"

Sam grabbed onto Dean's arm and together they got uneasily back on his feet. Once Sam was finally standing, he wrapped an arm around Dean's neck and Dean let himself take the bulk of Sam's weight as he helped him inside. He lay Sam on the bed, closed the door, and checked the salt lines to make sure they were still unbroken, then ran back to the bed to help his still gasping brother. As he leaned over him, he saw that Sam's neck was beginning to bruise in a thin line and it didn't take Dean long to connect the dots.

"Jesus Sam, are you going to be alright? Can you breathe?"

"Yeah," Sam rasped out, "Just give me a couple of minutes."

Dean grimaced. He was going to kill this thing nice and slow for even daring to touch Sam. "Alright." He backed off, sat down on the opposite bed, and watched Sam for a little while until his breaths become more even. "What the hell was that thing?"

"Berta Miller." Sam's voice was still low and throaty, but not as bad as it was thirty seconds ago and Dean breathed a sigh of relief.

"Who?"

Sam pointed to the desk across the room near the front door where a fresh pile of papers lay beside his laptop. Dean went over, grabbed the papers, and started leafing through them. "Son of a bitch. We're dealing with a vengeful spirit, aren't we?"

"Yep."

"It says here Berta Miller was strangled by her husband –"

"On their wedding anniversary, yeah."

"Well, he sounds like a real charmer."

Dean turned around and saw Sam sitting on his bed, watching him. Sam rubbed the front of his neck and cleared his throat. "Well, apparently," Sam said in a voice that had almost completely lost its earlier raspiness, "Berta's husband decided to take on a new lover and when the lover demanded she have him all to herself, he reacted by murdering his wife. Now, here's the interesting thing; according to reports, Berta's sister knew about the affair all along and had even written Berta a letter telling her about it, but never got up the courage to send it. Berta's husband kills her on their anniversary, and the sister, feeling guilty and responsible for her death, hangs herself."

"You think Laurie's husband is fooling around and Candace knew about it? That maybe this spirit is going around taking out vengeance on other people because she can't gank her own sister?"

Sam sighed. "That was my original theory, that is, until I went outside to grab a soda and got attacked in broad daylight."

Dean scrunched up his face in confusion. "Wait a minute, if it's a spirit, how did it leave its usual haunt and follow us to our motel?"

Sam looked thoughtful. "It's actually not all that crazy. Remember that death omen Claire? She became attached to people and followed them."

"Right, yeah, I remember. All those people were tied to the same douchebag who arrested us and then tried to kill me."

"So." Sam was quiet for a few seconds. "We must all be tied together somehow in a way that's so significant to the spirit that she can follow us around."

Dean nodded. That was weird and confusing. "So, another spirit changing the rules. Awesome. Have you figured out the connection?"

Sam shrugged. "Obviously Candace was a blood relation to our ghost and, who knows, she might have known something about her sister, but I can't figure out how we fit in to it."

"Okay, so where does the necklace come in?"

"Um, remains, maybe? I mean, it could be something as little as a flap of skin or a piece of hair, but there's gotta be some part of her that's still in that necklace."

"Okay, so whatever the bitch's problem is, why she's ganking people, I don't care. We find the necklace and we destroy it."

"Yeah, not gonna argue with you there, but how do we get the necklace and remain in one piece with Berta coming after us this whole time?"

"Salt. We'll load up our shotguns with salt rounds, keep vials of it in our pockets, whatever it takes. But if we have enough salt, we can hit the spirit with it whenever it comes near, she can't touch us."

Sam nodded. The plan was far from perfect, but without being able to know why the spirit was coming after them, it seemed like the best chance they had.

Later that evening as Sam and Dean drove furiously away from Laurie's house, Dean clutching his bleeding upper arm and Sam wincing in pain at a bruise forming over his right eye, they were beginning to seriously re-think their plan.

"That bitch comes back fast!" Dean remarked, as she once again appeared right in front of Sam and had to be repelled by a handful of salt Sam grabbed out of a large container sitting upright in the backseat. "Why didn't burning the necklace kill it? All we did was piss her off!"

"Maybe it's not just about burning it; maybe we have to melt the whole thing down."

"Great. So we need a damn furnace?"

Berta appeared at Dean's side. Sam grabbed a handful of salt and threw it at Dean, temporarily clouding his vision and stinging his eyes. The car swerved, but Dean wiped his eyes and quickly steered out of it.

"I just wish we knew why – wait!"

"What?" Dean winced, not knowing whether Sam just figured something out or if he was going to get another face full of salt.

"Berta's sister! She wrote a letter telling Berta about something that she thought would destroy Berta's life and so she never sent it. Candace had just written that pink slip and was afraid to give it to her employee because she thought it would do the same. Maybe this spirit – duck!" Sam threw another fistful of salt at his brother and Berta once again disappeared. "Maybe this spirit at first wanted to go after her sister because she knew about what was happening and never sent her the letter, but she couldn't because her sister had already offed herself. So now it's going after people who have a secret that's written down but they're too afraid that it will ruin the intended recipient's life to let them read it."

Dean looked at Sam and he realized what Sam was talking about. "Chuck's story."

"It's the one thing we all have in common."

"Well, what the Hell are we going to do? We don't even have it to read it!"

Sam ducked his head in embarrassment for a moment. "Yes we do."

"What?"

"I got it from him the morning after we went to his house."

Dean growled. "No Sam, there has to be some other way!"

"I don't think so, Dean. It's either that or s-"

Sam's sentence was cut off and he once again began tugging at something on his neck. Dean couldn't see the spirit so he threw salt all over Sam's general direction and Sam once again was able to gasp for fresh air. Dean growled unhappily as he considered his options with this case, knowing that if they didn't want to die, they were really only left with one.

"Where's the story?" he asked.

Sam hurriedly reached into the backseat and began fishing through his duffel. Dean quickly pulled off the road and to the shoulder and watched Sam in his search for a moment before he was distracted by the feeling of something cold and otherworldly in his lap. He looked in front of him to see Berta straddling him a look of sheer malevolence on her face. He was about to try to grab for some rock salt when he felt something smack him on the chest and Berta disappeared. He grabbed at it and saw that it was Chuck's story.

"Well, I guess that proves the theory," Sam said.

Dean stared down at the manuscript without really looking at it. "Right. Sam, whatever you're about to read in here, I'm sorry."

Sam looked down fearfully at his own copy. "Yeah, me too."

Without another word, they each lifted Chuck's story to their faces and began reading.


	12. Genesis

_Dean burst through the door of the motel room, grinning ear-to-ear. He set their recently bloodied supplies down in a corner of the room and then turned back towards to door to watch his brother walk in behind him. Sam's face was somber, he had his hands in his pockets, and his posture was hunched. At seeing Sam's expression, Dean headed over to the dresser and pulled out a full bottle of whiskey._

_"Come on man, stop looking like a priest on Sunday!"_

_Sam shot his brother a questioning look. "What are you talking about?"_

_Still holding the bottle, Dean raised his hands in the air with his elbows crooked and then he shrugged. "I mean, I know decapitations aren't your idea of a good time, but sometimes you gotta lighten up a little." He walked over to the bathroom, emerged with two plastic cups, and set them down on the desk beside Sam. "Come on Sammy, we gotta celebrate, eh? That was one hell of a move you pulled on that nasty son of a bitch!" He smiled, beaming with pride as he poured their drinks into the two cheap, plastic cups._

_Sam looked appreciatively at his brother. It had been a long time since he'd seen Dean look at him with such pride and admiration and maybe even longer since he'd seen him genuinely smile. It was nice to see after so long. Hell, after their recent separation right after the apocalypse had started, it was actually nice to see him at all. Over the past few years, Sam had come to accept two things in life once and for all: one, if he ever tried to have any semblance of a normal life that innocent people were going to die; and two, he didn't want normal anyway, because life without Dean just wasn't worth living. He had felt dead inside whenever they got separated, like a body that was just going through the motions without any actual purpose. He didn't feel right without Dean around, didn't feel whole. He knew that, back when they were younger, Dean used to feel something similar, but he wasn't sure if that had changed. After all, a lot of things were different between them now and not just because he had started the apocalypse; there was Ruby and all the things he had done with her, the demon blood, the way his nature had become so cruel in the last few months before the apocalypse began. Sam looked at Dean's face; it was untroubled and light. Dean was happy and, despite his own disturbed thoughts, Sam couldn't help but smile as he took one of the cups out of Dean's hands and took a shot of the whiskey._

Sam cringed. It was embarrassing and weird for to know that Dean was going to read his thoughts like this, put on paper by someone else. He sneaked a quick, shifty glance over at Dean, but saw that he was determinedly looking down at the paper and nothing else. He looked upset and embarrassed and Sam wondered if Dean was already further down the page than he had gotten. He quickly shifted his eyes back to the manuscript and kept reading.

_Dean stared amusedly at his brother as Sam made a sound of quiet discomfort when the burn of the liquor hit his throat. Sam put his cup back down on the desk and Dean refilled their glasses. He waited until Sam picked up his cup and then held out his own in a gesture of a toast._

_"To the revenant; may the son of a bitch burn in hell."_

_Sam shot him a confused look but clinked his cup against Dean's anyway and downed his shot. Okay, so Dean realized that maybe he was being a little ridiculous at the moment, but he was in a good mood; he and Sam were back on the road, just the two of them, killing evil things, just like in the good old days. And Sam wasn't even banging any of those evil things, ditching him for them, or sucking their blood. He smiled as he thought about how he'd barged in right when the devil had been sprung from his cage and then watched Sam hold Ruby in place while he stabbed her. That bitch fucked his brother, used him, and screwed their relationship to hell and it felt good that the first thing they'd done as a team right after their big fight was take out that blank-eyed skank. He thought about her putting her damn hands on Sam and it made him feel sick and seethe with rage. She had no right to touch him, absolutely no fucking right._

Sam looked up from the page, feeling surprised and a little confused. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that Dean was actually jealous over him being with Ruby. Weird. He looked back down at paper and kept reading.

_"What's got you in such a good mood?" Sam asked as he set his again empty cup down on the desk._

_Dean grinned and shrugged. "I don't know, I guess, well, I guess it feels nice is all." Sam raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "You know, you and me, on the road again, hunting things, working together. I guess, I don't know, man, I guess I'm still just getting used to it. It's good."_

_Sam smiled and stared down absently at his empty cup, before setting it back down on the desk. "Yeah, I like this, too."_

_Dean picked up their glasses with one hand and the bottle of whiskey with the other and made his way to his bed with Sam following behind him. He set the cups and the bottle down on the nightstand and sat down, feeling the mattress springs groan beneath him. Sam sat down on his own bed. Dean poured them both a third shot, then lifted his glass and shot it back and out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam do the same._

_Dean laughed and said, "hey, remember when I put itching powder in your shorts that one time?"_

_Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, that was so not cool!"_

_Dean laughed and poured them both another shot. "Yeah, well, it was no picnic having to pry off that beer bottle you super glued to my hand, either. Man, I couldn't jack off for a week!"_

_Sam threw his head back and laughed out loud. "I remember doing that! You had it coming after the itching powder thing, though." He took his shot and found that it no longer burned quite as badly as before._

_"Yeah, maybe. Thank God those douchebags came along and helped us put an end to that prank war before it got too outta hand."_

_"What, the guys who nearly got us killed? Twice?"_

_"Come on, you gotta admit, making them drive out to California for no reason with a dead fish in their backseat was some pretty good payback! Well, at least for the first time they almost got us killed, anyway."_

_They sat like that for a while, drinking, laughing and reminiscing. A few hours later, Dean drank another cup of whiskey, no longer bothering to try measuring out a shot, then lifted the bottle and sloshed around what little was left at the bottom._

_"Well, this one's just about done."_

_Sam, who had been sitting on his bed looking deep in thought and absently biting his lip, turned to his brother and held out his hand. "Here, I'll finish it."_

_Dean handed him the bottle and then went back to the dresser where he had a bottle of tequila waiting. He drank some of the tequila and then they moved on to a six-pack they had in the fridge. As they sat on their beds and drank their beers, the room became quiet for a moment and Sam's face went from thoughtful to brooding and pensive. He sat still for several minutes, looking increasingly moody, before he finally spoke._

_"Dean, I'm sorry."_

_Dean looked over at his brother, surprised. "What for?"_

_Sam looked down at the floor, shamefaced. "For everything."_

_Dean nodded. "Well, that's specific."_

_Sam looked up and Dean saw the sorrow and pain in his eyes that sometimes came out with such ferocity when he was drunk. "The way you looked at me earlier tonight, you were proud of me."_

_Dean grinned at Sam happily and shifted his weight a little towards him. "Of course I was, Sammy. You really saved my ass back there."_

_A few silent tears began to run down Sam's face and he looked at him pleadingly. "Dean, don't."_

_"Don't what?" He wasn't quite sure where Sam was going with this._

_"Don't call me Sammy. I'm not Sammy, I don't deserve…"_

_Oh. Sam's speech was slurred but fairly coherent and laced with overwhelming pain and it hurt for Dean to hear. Dean scooted forward on his bed and leaned in forward, resting his forearms on his knees so that he was only inches away from his brother. "Hey, hey, Sam, don't talk like that. How can you say that?"_

_"How can't I? I see the way you've been looking at me lately, Hell, for years even, like I'm some sideshow freak! And it used to make me angry, but now," he paused and looked down for a moment and when he spoke again his voice cracked, like he was barely keeping it together. "Now I know it's true."_

Shit. Well, it would figure he'd bring that up. He'd been dealing with those feelings of shame and self-hatred over what he'd done for months now and had just been avoiding talking about it to Dean. After all, what was Dean going to say? That it was alright? It wasn't, and they both knew that. That it wasn't his fault? It was, and it was only recently that Dean had stopped reminding him of it. That he would stick by him? Of course he was sticking by him; he had to or else Sam was going to go out and do the most monstrous thing yet; say yes to Lucifer and end the world. God, he hoped he didn't bring up the fact that he was still craving demon blood. This, right here, was one of the reasons why he didn't get drunk very often; he almost inevitably ended up talking about his feelings.

_Dean flinched. Over the years, he had been scared for Sam because of his powers, and then later he was scared of Sam when they had started to change him, but he never meant to treat him like a freak. Okay, maybe he'd thought it, sure, but it never changed the way he really felt about his brother. The man sitting in front of him was his Sammy, his baby brother, his best friend, his partner, his…Hell, his everything, and, after everything they'd been through, nothing was ever going to change that._

_"You're not a freak, okay? You didn't ask for what that yellow-eyed son of a bitch did to you."_

_"Yeah, well, I played right into his game, didn't I? I did everything he wanted, and Lilith, and Ruby too." He disdainfully spat Ruby's name, and it made Dean wish she was alive again just so he could kill her for a second time._

_"It doesn't matter, Sam. I already told you, we make a mess, we'll clean it up. We'll fix it, together."_

_Sam, the ever-emotional drunk, suddenly exploded with anger. "No Dean!" He pointed vehemently to himself, "I made the mess! I mean, Ruby? Drinking demon blood? What the Hell was I thinking? And then right before I popped Lucifer from his cage, I left you and, god, I choked you! I…" he let out a little snivel. "And I still crave the blood. Sometimes it just drives me crazy; I can't get the thought of drinking blood out of my head. You were right; I'm a monster, a vampire, and you should have just killed me like you were going to."_

_Huh? Dean knew he'd said a lot of hurtful things to Sam in the past, but, even in his clearly inebriated state, he was pretty sure he'd never said that. His mind was spinning from the alcohol, but he was also beginning to feel lack of inhibition, and that was rather freeing. "You listen to me, Sam. I never said you were a monster. And I don't care if you burn this entire world to the ground, I will never kill you. I mean it; I'd rather die first. And I don't give a crap if that's selfish; I will never live without you"_

_"But you're voicemail – I –" Dean looked confusedly at him and Sam began to trip horribly over his words. "Right before – I was outside the, the monastery, with…" he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to put his thoughts in order, "and I was trying to decide what to do – the demon blood was making me evil," he clenched his teeth, "I could feel it, you know, burning inside me, poisoning me, and I thought – I thought that maybe you were right, that maybe I should find you so we could kill Lilith together. But then I got…" Sam's voice cracked and broke off. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and streaky, silent tears rolled down his face. "I got your message, and when I heard you say you were done trying to save me, that's when I knew you didn't, that you couldn't…love me anymore, so I thought I'd save you the trouble. I thought – thought icing Lilith would kill me and then she'd be dead and you wouldn't have to…I mean, something good could come out of it…"_

Sam flinched and shrank a little in his seat. Now Dean knew about the demon blood cravings. Great. Given how drunk he was that night though, he was actually amazed and a little proud of himself that he was as lucid and coherent as he apparently was. He had already known that, even stinking drunk, Dean could usually hold a fairly coherent conversation, but Sam had never guessed that, at a point like this, he would be capable of much more than spluttering a few drunken, broken, sentence fragments. As he was reading though everything that he said that night though, it felt kind of like he'd been given the gift of a curse that he was able to be so coherent at a time when he was also so incredibly drunk.

_Dean's face turned to a mask of sheer fury. He got up from the bed, wanting desperately to shoot something. Instead, he walked to the front door and punched the wall beside it._

_"Damn it! Those angel dicks! It's no wonder…that's what he meant when he said…oh, when I get my hands on him, I'm going to dunk that bastard in holy oil and roast him on a spit!"_

_Sam sat watching his brother as he seemingly babbled incoherently. "What?"_

_"I never said that, Sam! They – the angels, Zachariah – they changed the message so you would think that and then go and spring Lucifer from his cage."_

_Sam walked up to him and looked him in the eyes. "Tell me you never said it."_

_He stared at him about as intensely as he could. "I never said it. You're my brother. You're my Sammy. That'll never change."_

_Sam's lower lip trembled slightly as tears began running down his face anew. He reached up and cupped Dean's face in his hands, lightly stroking Dean's his chin. "Thank you, Dean, thank you."_

_Something was wrong; they were too close. Sam's face kept moving closer to Dean's; his fingers were caressing him too much. Dean felt an excitement in his belly at what was happening, but he didn't fully understand why. This had happened before, Sam touching his face, moving in close, and he'd stopped it as soon as he'd felt this same arousal. This time though, he stood still, stomach clenched and lips slightly parted. Then Sam closed the distance between them and tenderly kissed Dean on the mouth. His lips touched Dean's lightly and experimentally, moving slowly against Dean's mouth, as if waiting to see how Dean would respond. Dean had a couple of fuzzy thoughts in his head about "wrong" and something about awkwardness the next morning, but when he felt Sam's lips stop moving Dean picked up the kiss, amazed at how good and right it all felt._

_When Sam felt him kissing back, he immediately deepened the kiss, moving his lips more forcefully and running his tongue against Dean's lower lip. Dean moaned into Sam's mouth and opened wider, letting Sam's tongue slide into his mouth. Their tongues met, caressing each other, and Sam inhaled sharply and pushed Dean against the wall, fully assaulting his mouth with wet, hot, deep kisses. Dean felt himself growing hard. He broke the kiss, breathing heavier than before, and Sam moved his mouth down to Dean's neck, licking and sucking the spot just below his ear._

_"God, Sammy, oh god, we, mmm, fuck yeah, no, wait, mmm, we should stop."_

_Sam pulled his mouth away from Dean's neck and moved so that his face was mere inches from Dean's, his face serious, his clearly lust-blown eyes intensely staring at him. His hands were caressing Dean's face, running themselves through his short locks, fingertips gently caressing his neck. "Do you want to stop?" His tone sounded earnest, as if he was asking an honest question, even if the lust in his eyes and the travelling of his hands were refusing to obey the seeming seriousness with which he was treating the question. Dean felt Sam's breath ghost across his lips as he spoke and it sent a pleasant shiver through his body. Sam moved even closer and their lips were now lightly touching. "We can stop if you want to, Dean." He kissed Dean on the side of his mouth. "Tell me you want to stop."_

_Dean growled in arousal and, ignoring his brain's half-formed objections, he grabbed Sam by the back of the head and mashed their lips together in a hard, passionate kiss. God, he never thought doing this with Sam would feel so unbelievably good, so hot, so damn perfect. Sam's kiss became needier, deeper, almost frantic, as he once again shoved Dean hard against the wall, his mouth nearly crushing Dean's, his tongue sliding all over Dean's mouth. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders, running his hands through Sam's long, soft locks as he kissed him back just as hard, lightly biting his lips and moaning into his mouth._

_Sam pulled away and moved his mouth down to the front of Dean's neck, lightly sucking his Adam's apple. Dean felt Sam's shaking hands on the front of his button-down over-shirt, clumsily trying to undo the first button. After a few seconds, Sam took his mouth away from Dean's neck altogether so he could look down at what he was doing. Dean neither helped him nor made any attempts to stop him. God, he wanted this so badly; he was fully hard now, his jeans feeling painfully tight against his erection. But he kept getting the feeling that this was something he shouldn't want, no matter how good or right it felt._

_"Do you want this, Dean?" Sam had finally gotten the first button undone and was now clumsily working his fingers on the second. He grabbed the neck of Dean's t-shirt and stretched it, displaying his collarbone, which he licked and then lightly ran his teeth over. Dean moaned and he felt his body shiver. "Tell me right now if you want to do this."_

_Dean was no longer sure if Sam was asking the question to ensure his full consent or if it was because it was some kind of turn-on for him to hear the words, but then Sam sucked and bit the juncture where his neck met his shoulder and he heard his own rough and throaty voice say, "yes!" Dean's heart fluttered in excitement and nervousness. He was beginning to wonder if he was really just having one of his many sex dreams about Sam and that any second now he was going to wake up in his bed, painfully hard and having to jerk off with Sam sleeping just a few feet away before he could get to sleep again._

Sam looked up from the manuscript with his eyes and mouth wide open in shock and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Reading about himself and Dean touching each other like this was making him uncomfortably hard. Also, Dean had sex dreams about him? That was… incredibly sexy. He wondered what Dean dreamed about when he thought about him in that way. Was it always like the scene he was reading in Chuck's story? He turned his head and stared at his brother. Dean's face and neck were both crimson and he was still purposefully staring down at the paper as if he would be shot if he looked away. After a couple of seconds he saw Dean's eyes shift slightly towards him. He coughed and cleared his throat, then leaned over and turned the car's tape player back on. "Coming Under Fire" filled the car and Dean once again stared determinedly at his paper, refusing to make any more movement. 

_Sam gave Dean's neck one last kiss and then he pulled away and rested his forehead against Dean's, breathing hard through his mouth. Dean felt Sam's breath on his face; it smelled of whiskey._

_"Me too." He moved his hands back to the buttons of his shirt, moving a little more quickly than before to get them undone. "God, Dean, I've wanted this for so long."_

Wow. For years, he had never even been able to admit it to himself, even if in some dark recess of his mind he had known this whole time about his weird, more than brotherly feelings towards Dean. Without a sober Dean to stop him from talking and put him to bed, the things he was able to say and do were surprising him.

_Sam removed Dean's button-down shirt and tossed it on the floor then moved his hands to his own buttons and began to shakily undo them. Dean put his hand over his, leaned forward and gave Sam a quick, reassuring kiss on the lips, then began undoing Sam's shirt buttons himself. After he undid the last button, he slid his hands around Sam's hips. His warm fingers glided slowly over the waistband of Sam's jeans, fingertips just barely touching the smooth skin underneath. He moved his hands first backwards, feeling where Sam's hipbones met his ass, and then forwards, feeling the hipbones and the muscular V on Sam's hips that dipped down to places still unknown to him. When he reached the front of his jeans, he moved his hands upwards underneath the shirt, stroking the hard ridges of his stomach. Then he moved south, sliding down Sam's front until he felt the large, hot, hard bulge underneath Sam's jeans. He rubbed his palm up and down against the hard length. Sam let his head fall back a little, closed his eyes, and moaned, and Christ if that didn't turn him on even more. He began rubbing him a little faster._

_"Christ, Sam."_

_"Oh God," he whispered, "touch me, Dean."_

_Dean very readily unzipped Sam's jeans, reached in, and gripped Sam's thick, hard shaft through his boxers, moving his hand back and forth and building friction through the thin layer of cotton. He looked at Sam's face as he jerked him, watching his expressions of pleasure that played on his features at what Dean was doing to him. Sam bit his lip and Dean grabbed the back of Sam's head with his free hand and pulled him towards him. He licked the spot on Sam's lips where he had bitten and then brought their mouths together in a slow, sensual kiss. Sam wrapped his arms around him and Dean felt him tugging at his body. After a second, he realized that Sam was trying to bring the two of them over to the bed. Dean felt himself swaying slightly as he stood and with his first step he tripped over his own feet and nearly fell over. After that, he was pretty sure that if they didn't separate to make the trip over to the bed that it was going to result in some serious physical injury. He took his hand out of Sam's pants and pulled away._

_Sam looked at Dean, shamefaced and stunned. "You don't want…" His voice trailed off._

_Dean looked at his brother; hair messed from his fingers, lips red and swollen, over-shirt unbuttoned, fly undone with white cotton boxers poking out from the hole. He looked even hotter than anything Dean had ever seen in his dreams. Dean began wrestling with his boots, fighting to get them off._

_"Are you fucking kidding me, Sam? You're a goddamned walking, talking wet dream." Sam blushed and looked down, hiding his face behind his hair. Dean finally managed to get off his boots and threw them across the room. He stepped into Sam and slid his hands underneath his over-shirt, pushing it back and letting it fall to the floor. "Don't be embarrassed, Sammy."_

_Wrapping his arms around Sam, Dean trailed his fingertips down Sam's back, feeling the hard muscles underneath his clothes. He tugged at the bottom hem of Sam's t-shirt and pulled it up over his stomach. Sam lifted his arms and helped him take it off and then Dean removed his own t-shirt. Sam eyed him for a moment and then reached out and ran his fingers over Dean's tattoo._

_"I love that you have this, that we share this," he said, looking fondly at the place his fingers were tracing._

_He moved in, dipped his head down slightly, and ran his tongue along Dean's tattoo, moving it in a wide circle around the outline of the sun at the outer edge._

_Dean moaned. "Oh, fuck. On the bed now, Sam."_

_Sam smirked and backed up towards the bed, stumbling several times on the way. Once his calves hit the bedframe, he fell down on his back and then propped up on his elbows with an expression on his face that was just practically begging Dean to touch him. Dean unbuttoned and unzipped is own jeans, then hastily pushed them to the floor and stepped out of them. He quickly threw off his socks and strode over to Sam where he lay watching him, and stood at the foot of the bed where he removed Sam's boots and socks. From there, he climbed on the bed and on top of Sam, relishing the way his body slid up Sam's, his eyes enjoying every inch of his body along the way. When his entire body was finally hovering over his and his eyes were looking directly at Sam's face, he saw trust, love, and lust in his brother's eyes and it touched and aroused him simultaneously. He peppered Sam with kisses on his mouth, cheeks, nose, forehead, and chin._

_"God, look at you." He moved his lips down to his neck and Sam turned his head to allow him more access. Dean laid a trail of open-mouthed, wet kisses down the length of the left side of Sam's neck, lingering for a moment on each spot where his lips touched. Nothing would compare to the taste of Sam's skin. It tasted of salt, cheap soap, and still a hint of gunpowder from their last hunt. It was perfectly… home. "You are so fucking…" he got down to the bottom of his neck and unexpectedly bit down on Sam's collarbone, then licked the mark and sucked hard and Sam let out a loud moan. "…Sexy," he finished._

_Sam grabbed Dean's ass and brought his body down on him hard. Still clenching Dean's ass, he pushed their pelvises together and began rubbing himself against Dean's crotch, looking for friction between their bodies. Granting Sam his wish, Dean rubbed his rock-hard erection against Sam's, feeling himself get impossibly harder at hearing Sam's moans and quiet pants. He leaned his face in and tenderly kissed Sam on the mouth, enjoying the slow, sensual feeling of their lips sliding against each other. After a few moments, Sam moved his hands from Dean's ass and brought them up to his chest, pushing on it lightly. Dean lifted his upper half off of Sam, stopped dry-humping him, and looked into his eyes questioningly._

_Sam looked nervous and determined. "Dean."_

_"Yeah?"_

_Sam wrapped his arms around him and began to run his hands up and down Dean's back, lightly caressing it. Dean smiled, glad that Sam wasn't giving him the signal to stop, and began rubbing their cocks together again. "God, Dean, mm, that feels so good!" Sam threw his head back and shut his eyes. Dean watched his face, feeling happy and highly aroused that he could bring Sam pleasure like this. After a minute, Sam opened his eyes and looked at Dean. "I want – I want you to…" he blushed and shifted his eyes away._

_Dean smirked, completely smitten with Sam's shyness and embarrassment. He probably wanted him to suck his dick. He thought about it for a moment and decided that he wanted to try it. He'd done it a lot in his dreams about Sam, and in them he always enjoyed doing it. But first he wanted to hear Sam say that he wanted it._

_"What do you want, Sam?" He nuzzled Sam's neck. "You know I'd give you anything." He laid a closed-mouthed kiss on Sam's neck at the pulse point. "Anything you wanted."_

_"Fuck me."_

_Sam said it almost as a whisper, and it was such a shock that it took Dean a second to fully take in what Sam had just said. "What?"_

_Sam looked so vulnerable as he stared up at him, so broken and burning up with need. "I want you to fuck me."_

_Dean's stomach twisted excitedly as he thought of himself buried inside of Sam. He'd thought of doing that to Sam, too. Dean preferred to be the bottom in his dreams, but he definitely wasn't opposed to the idea of it being the other way around. He looked down at his brother. Sam was lying underneath him, skin flushed, rock hard, looking like the sexiest thing he'd ever seen, and in that moment he realized that he'd always wanted this moment with Sam, wanted him laid out like this underneath him, begging him, wanting him. But it was more than he ever thought he'd do, even in this moment with their hot mouths and hands all over each other._

_Sam looked at him pleadingly. "Please, Dean. I feel so unlovable, so disgusting."_

_Dean gave Sam a quick kiss on the mouth. "You're not."_

_"The things I did, what I heard you say…"_

_"I never said those things and you'll always be my Sammy no matter what you do."_

_"Show me. Fuck me."_

_Dean nodded and looked seriously into Sam's face. "Okay," he whispered in his deep, whiskey-scratched voice._

Sam stopped reading for a moment and then shifted his eyes back up a couple of paragraphs and re-read a part of one sentence three more times; _he'd always wanted this moment with Sam, wanted him laid out like this underneath him, begging him, wanting him._ He hadn't forced Dean into this and it hadn't been a one-time, confused, drunken mistake. They were both so plastered that they didn't remember it the next day, but the act they performed together was purposeful and wanted on both sides. Dean wanted him and always had. He looked over at Dean, who looked like he couldn't get any redder now as his eyes continued to move left to right down the page. Sam put his copy of the manuscript on the dashboard, leapt over the seat onto Dean, straddling him in a mere matter of seconds, and caught Dean's lips in a fiercely hard kiss.


	13. Rock of ages

As Sam's mouth descended upon Dean's, Dean's eyes opened wide in surprise and alarm. His brother had him pinned in an enclosed space and he couldn't move, couldn't escape from the weight of Sam's hard, hot body that was pushing him down and keeping him in place. Sam reached over and down with one long arm and managed to grab a lever on the left side of the seat and Dean felt his upper half fall backwards as his seat fell back as far as it could go. Sam then moved his legs and managed to get them between Dean's, using his feet for leverage as he lay on top of his brother. He kissed Dean insistently, his lips never ceasing even when Dean refused to kiss back. Dean dropped his copy of the story in Sam's side of the bench seat and then held up his hands on either side of him, refusing to touch his brother in any way, and sat perfectly still, waiting for Sam to stop and for it all to be over with. At last, Sam pulled back, seeming to finally realize that Dean wasn't going to give in and kiss him back, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Sam's face was still only a few inches apart from Dean's. "Come on, Dean; I know you want this just as much as I do."

He felt Sam's breath on his lips, felt Sam's hard body and even harder erection pushing up against him, and, God yes, he did want it. But Sam didn't want this. He couldn't, not really; he was just confused. "No, Sam. Stop."

"You can't lie to me; I just read what happened and I know how you feel."

Dammit! "No, Sam, you don't understand. It doesn't matter what I want. You don't really want me like this; you're just confused because of the whole soulmates thing."

Sam pulled back further, cocking his eyebrow and giving him an incredulous look. "Soulmates thing?"

Shit, that's right; he'd been keeping that bit of information from him out of fear that Sam would take the facts and, even if he left out the part where it was possible for the attraction to turn physical, somehow still be able to figure out how Dean felt. Obviously, he was no longer in any danger of that, since Chuck had decided to get way into his head and fuck everything to hell.

"Yeah, Cas told me. We're soulmates."

Sam looked at him confusedly. "What does that even mean?"

"Its…I'm tied to you and you're tied to me. We each have our own soul, but it's like…" he floundered trying to find the right words. This was insanely awkward. "We're two halves of one power ring."

Sam squinted at him, looking more puzzled than ever. "What?"

"Our souls are the complement to each other. Cas said that our souls are so wound up together that they attract each other like magnets, which is why we never feel right when we're away from each other. It's why I sold my soul to get you back, why you tried to sell your soul to get me back, why we're Michael and Lucifer's vessels…" He was rambling now, but he kept plunging forward, trying to get everything out at once. "Hell, it's even probably why we can always tell whenever the other one of us is in trouble and how we can come up with plans together without needing to talk. Cas said that our souls are so tied to each other that the attraction could turn physical." His voice turned pleading. "But he also told me that you're straight. See, Sammy? You don't really feel this way; you're just confused about how you're drawn to me."

Sam smirked and let out a laugh. "You basically just told me that we're perfect for each other and you still think I'm confused."

"You are confused."

Sam leaned his whole body back into him and began rubbing his hard-on against Dean's. "Do I feel confused to you?"

Dean groaned. Why did Sam have to make this so difficult for him? After all, he wasn't made of stone; a person could have only so much self-control. He grabbed the sides of Sam's hips and made him stop dry-humping him. "Think about it, Sam; you don't want this. Remember when I got you from Stanford? You were going to college. You going to be a lawyer, get married, have kids, the whole shebang. I mean, as a kid it was basically all you talked about. You didn't want to move around so much, didn't want to feel like a freak, wanted to settle down. You wanted a normal life."

Sam sighed. "I've already told you before; I'm not that guy anymore. And even then, when I was doing all that stuff, it didn't feel right."

"I know you always want me around, Sam, I do. And, trust me, I understand. I'll never leave you. But, even if you don't want the nine-to-five job, wife, and kids anymore, you don't want me. Do you really think you'd be happy having to hide who you are all the time to keep everyone from knowing that you're having a gay, incestuous relationship with your own brother? I mean, I get that you're not into normal anymore, but I know that that's not what you want. Think about it Sam; you might love me, but I'll never be able to make you happy, not in the long-run. And I can't just have sex with you; if we did this, there would have to be a long-run. Now, please get off of me; we can finish the hunt and pretend like this never happened."

Dean wanted to try to move his body, wanted to sit up on his elbows to give Sam the hint to get the hell off, but instead he just lay there in the same position he was in since the start of this encounter: arms up in the air to the sides of his head. He stared up at Sam, feeling terrified and powerless, half-hoping that he would get off of him and half-hoping that he wouldn't.

Sam laid a chase, closed-mouthed kiss on Dean's cheek. "I want this, Dean. And I don't want to just have sex with you; I want there to be a long-run, too. I know you're trying to protect me like you always do, but you have to stop treating me like I'm some dumb kid. I know what I'm doing and I know what I want."

Dean was suddenly possessed with a burst of indignant anger that came out of nowhere and that he didn't understand. He snorted derisively. "Right, just like how you knew what you were doing when you trusted Ruby, or when you drank demon blood, or when you killed Lilith and let Lucifer out of the box! Is that the kind of knowing what you're doing that you're talking about?"

Sam looked at him as if he had been punched in the face, but when he spoke, his voice was level. "You can insult me all you want, Dean, but I know that you're only saying all this stuff because you're scared. Trust me, Dean; I'm scared too. But I want this, and I know you do, too."

Dean's throat felt tight as he thought about just how much he wanted Sam and about how little sense it made for Sam to want him back. Why would Sam want him? What did he even have to offer him? He was a violent, closed-off, alcoholic mess. He'd fucked more people than he could even count. For most of his life, he'd been a mindless slave, allowing himself to be ordered around by their father. He wasn't smart and resourceful like Sam, or good at sharing his feelings, and he was too damaged to be an adequate long-term boyfriend to anyone. Sam deserved and could do a lot better. Those things, above all, were the reasons why Dean had stayed blinded to Sam's real feelings for him for so long, even after Castiel had practically come right out and told him about it; when it got right down to it, he knew that no matter what he did he would just never be good enough.

The tell-tale first line of "Rock of Ages" began playing on the tape deck, making it the only sound in the car besides the quiet sounds of the brothers' breathing. Sam began rubbing himself up against Dean again, finding a slow rhythm. Dean knew he could feel the erection he still had and couldn't hide when Sam was on top of him like this.

Dean wasn't sure how much longer he could control himself. "Sam, please."

"Why? Why can't we have this? I don't care if the whole world knows we're brothers as we make-out in the middle of the street in broad daylight. I don't want normal. I don't want a wife and kids and a big house with a picket fence. I want you." He ground his pelvis down a little harder as Dean's erection grew. "Do you want me?"

Goddamn, Sam's cock felt so good rubbing up against him like that. He shut his eyes and tried to keep it together. "Yes," he answered truthfully. There was no point in lying; Sam already knew the answer. It was practically a rhetorical question.

"Then let's make ourselves happy for a change."

Sam leaned in slowly and caught Dean's lips in another kiss, but this time it was slow, gentle, and tentative. Dean moaned at the feeling of Sam's hard cock and soft lips on him and finally gave in. He moved his lips against Sam's, picking up the pace of the kiss and Sam began grinding up against him faster.

Dean broke the kiss, let his head fall back, and closed his eyes. "Oh, fuck, Sam."

He wrapped his arms around Sam's back, then lifted his hips and began moving them in time with Sam's movements, grinding their pelvises together harder.

"Mm, Dean, God that's good!"

They continued to rub their cocks together as they kissed, biting each other's lips and delving their tongues deep into each other's mouths. Dean's flesh began to feel overheated as his arousal continued to build within him, his cock becoming harder and harder with each thrust of Sam's hips against his. It also didn't help that Sam's body was like a freaking heater and completely covering him as he slid all over him.

Sam pulled away and lifted his body upright, grabbing for the buttons of his over-shirt and undoing them quickly. Dean stared wide-eyed at Sam, feeling a little uneasy. He was really enjoying messing around with Sam, which was something he was still coming to terms with and, without alcohol to block his freaked-out thoughts, he wasn't sure how far he was ready to go just yet.

"Sam?"

Sam looked down at his brother's worried expression and nodded in understanding. "Don't worry, Dean; I'm not ready for that just yet, either. I just want to take off my shirt; it's kind of hot in here."

Dean nodded back and, from his position, began to struggle with his own two shirts, trying to get them off. Sam threw his over-shirt and t-shirt off and flung them over to the passenger's seat. Now that he was partially undressed, Dean could see the perspiration running down Sam's finely-toned chest and stomach, tiny beads of sweat that rolled over each muscle and down to the waistband of his jeans.

Dean, who was half-way through lifting up his t-shirt, stopped what he was doing and stared shameless at his brother. "Holy shit, Sam."

Sam looked down at his torso where Dean was very obviously staring. "Oh, sorry, I know, I'm kinda gross. Like I said; it's hot in here."

"Fuck no, Sam. You keep looking like while you're on top of me and I might have to bend you over right here."

Sam smiled and grabbed the bottom of Dean's t-shirt. "Here, let me help you with that."

Sam pulled Dean's shirt off and then once again lowered his body onto him, rubbing himself against Dean's painfully hard erection and taking his lips in a hot, hard, deep kiss. As soon as Dean felt Sam's hot, slick skin come into contact with his own he couldn't repress the embarrassingly loud moan that escaped from his lips and into Sam's mouth. He wrapped his arms around Sam's back and pulled him in close. He felt Sam's breath hitch and then he began moving his hips even faster, building more delicious friction between them. Sam took his mouth off of Dean's and moved it to his collarbone, where he bit down, licked, and then sucked.

"Ooh!" Dean cried out in pleasure, then moved his hands to cup Sam's ass and push his pelvis down forcefully on his own, lifting his hips a little so he could build up the speed of their thrusts.

Sam nipped Dean's earlobe, then pressed his lips to his ear. "Jesus, Dean, feels so good! I'm so close. Can you come for me, Dean? Please, come for me."

Dean was already close but hearing Sam talk to him like that nearly made him come in his pants right there. Sam pulled his mouth away from Dean's ear and repositioned himself so that he was looking down at him. Sam's skin was flushed, his eyes looking nearly drugged from the lust that raged within them. Fuck, his brother was so sexy that it wasn't even fair. He tilted his head back on the seat, frantically thrusting against Sam at a speed that made the car rock. His face flushed and he felt his balls pull up and his stomach clench and he knew he was only seconds away from orgasm.

"Fuck, yes, Sam! Fuck, yes, Sam!" He chanted the same three words over and over again as if it were a mantra.

Sam was soon matching Dean's shouts in volume and urgency. "Oh god, Dean! Oh god, oh god!"

Dean then let out an incomprehensible shout of garbled syllables as he came, immediately followed by Sam. Sam collapsed onto Dean, resting his forehead on Dean's shoulder, the both of them panting heavily.

"God, that was good, I needed that," Sam mumbled into Dean's chest.

Dean closed his eyes and smiled. He could feel the wetness of his and Sam's releases on him, but for the moment he didn't care. He stroked Sam's hair slowly as he lay underneath him, recovering from his intense orgasm. He'd never come that hard without having had sex in his life. He couldn't believe that he had just had such a good orgasm from his own brother.

"Yeah," he whispered, "that was pretty awesome."

Sam angled his head up and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth, then got off of him and moved back over to his own seat. He looked up and started laughing. "Dude! We totally steamed up every window in the Impala!"

Dean lazily opened his eyes, looked up at the windshield and saw that, indeed, it was completely fogged over. A quick glance around the rest of the car confirmed Sam's statement. "Well, will you look at that! Of course, you can't be too surprised; after all, I am pretty good."

Sam, who was by then pushing his t-shirt back down over his shoulders, rolled his eyes. "Whatever, I'm just glad it happened. Although, did our first consensual, non-drunk kiss have to be to 'Rock of Ages?'"

Dean held out his hand for his own shirts and Sam handed them over. He started putting the first one on. "What are you talking about? 'Rock of Ages' is a great song!"

"Right." Sam's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "People twice our age were probably getting laid to that song!"

Dean smirked, put the seat back up, and started the engine. "And the legacy lives on!"


	14. Idjits

Sam smiled and shook his head as he relaxed back into his seat, but after a couple of seconds he began to shift around uncomfortably. Now that he had had a couple of seconds to cool down, he couldn't help but notice that his lap felt hot and sticky with come, the bruise above his eye still hurt like hell, and Dean probably needed a bandage for his arm.

"I guess we should go back to the motel?"

He saw Dean shift a little uneasily in his seat as well. "Yeah. We'll get cleaned up and then we can try and find a way to get rid of that necklace before that Berta bitch goes off and ganks someone else."

The roaring of the engine and the music from the Def Lepard tape were the only noises to fill in the awkward silence between them as they headed back to the motel. Sam was starting to feel a little worried. What had just happened between them was one of best moments in his life, and obviously not just because before that he hadn't had any sexual contact, that he could remember at least, with anyone besides himself in almost eight months. After a lifetime of seemingly unrequited and confused feelings he had spent years trying to deny and felt like a perverted freak over, he had finally gotten what he always wanted. Just a few minutes ago, Dean was touching him, kissing him, wanting him. He was shouting his name as he had come undone underneath him. It was singularly the sexiest thing he had ever seen in his life. He had, literally, been dreaming about Dean doing that for years. But now the moment was over and each time he chanced a glance over at Dean he noticed that his brother was looking increasingly troubled as the minutes passed. He hoped that Dean wasn't already inwardly freaking-out, but also knew better than to hope otherwise.

Dean suddenly broke the silence. "Do you remember when I taught you how to tie your shoes?"

Sam looked over at him and blinked. "Um, yeah. Why?"

Dean looked over at him with a half-smile, but there was obvious guilt and regret etched into his face. "Did you ever think, you know, back then, that I would… ever touch you like that?"

Oh no. This wasn't going anywhere good. "Dean, I was six years old. You never would have touched me like this back then. But we grew up. Relationships change."

"I'm still your big brother. In my book, a big brother is supposed to look out for his little brother."

"This wouldn't stop you from looking out for me. You're not wrong for wanting this, Dean. I want it, too."

"It's incest, Sam."

"And apparently we're also soulmates, so what does it really matter?" Sam felt exasperated at his brother's stubbornness. "Who are we hurting by having this? We can't have malformed kids from being together and I'm sure that, given time, Bobby, Ellen, and even Jo will understand our relationship enough that they're not going to ostracize us for it!"

They pulled into the parking lot of the motel. Dean cut the engine and then looked down at the floor awkwardly. "Yeah, about that…Bobby already knows."

"Wha –" Sam stared at Dean in open-mouthed shock. How could Bobby already know? They just made out fifteen minutes ago! "How?" Dean continued to look down at the floor in embarrassment and then it suddenly clicked in Sam's head. "You told him. About that night we were drunk a month ago." Dean kept staring at his lap and didn't answer. "When did you tell him?"

"About a week ago when you were at the doctor after we tackled the man-witch."

They hadn't seen or spoken to Bobby since then. Sam's eyes went wide and his stomach tied into a knot of anxiety. "What did he say?" Dean opened the door to the Impala, mumbled something about needing to bandage his arm, then got out and started trudging to their motel room. Sam followed after him. "Is it that bad? Is he upset?" Dean ignored him as he unlocked the door to their room and stepped in. Sam followed him in, closing the door behind him. "Well, come on Dean, you gotta give me something."

Dean opened the drawer to the nightstand and pulled out their medical kit and a small bottle of whiskey, then placed the whiskey on the nightstand and the kit on his bed. He flipped the kit open, determinedly staring down at it. "No, he's not upset."

Sam couldn't seem to help just continuously gaping like some kind of moron at his brother, as every new thing he said was more surprising than the last. Bobby wasn't upset? He was pretty sure that he would be at least a little at first; incest was still a pretty big deal, no matter how right it felt for them.

"What did he say?"

Dean pulled out a roll of bandages. "He," Dean sniggered. "He actually thought we had already been together for years."

"Years? And that was, I mean…he was okay with that?"

Dean unbuttoned his over-shirt and threw it on the bed. "Apparently." He rolled up the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal the cut on his arm. It didn't look that deep; it was just a flesh wound.

Sam walked over to his own bed, then sat down and began untying his shoes so that he was now facing Dean's back. "But we stay overnight at his house."

From his vantage point, he saw the bottom of the whiskey bottle tilt up as Dean poured some of it onto the cut. "Yeah."

"Did he have an explanation for that?"

He poured a little more of the whiskey on the cut, then set the bottle back down on top of the nightstand. "He thought we were just being quiet."

"Huh." Sam felt pretty weird knowing about all the things Bobby must have thought were going on for years between them in his spare bedroom. He stood up and walked back to where he was originally standing so he could face Dean's profile and began to undo his pants. "Well, I guess at least he's okay with it."

Dean pulled out his knife and was using it to cut off a generous piece of bandage. The piece sliced off easily and then, for the first time since they began their conversation, Dean looked up at him. "And you're okay with it? I mean, really okay with it? This is what you want?"

He returned Dean's stare. "Yeah, it is. I mean, Cas might be right, I could be straight, I don't know. But I do know that I want you and that I always have since I was sixteen." He yanked his pants and boxers down his hips and let them fall to the floor, loving the way Dean's eyes shot down his body for a second before snapping back up to look once again at his face. "You don't have to feel guilty, Dean; I want you to look."

Dean's eyes dropped to the floor for a moment and then he turned his attention back to the bandage he was holding. He began to wrap it around his arm. "I know Sam, it's just – fuck, this is weird. I know we've already crossed, well, just about every line, but if we agree to do this, there's no going back."

"I don't want to go back. I want this."

Dean stopped rolling the bandage around his arm and just held it in the air as he looked back over at him. "You're sure, and I mean, absolutely sure, that this is what you want? You're not going to get tired of me and skip out again, right?"

"What? No!" Sam felt a pang as he realized once again how much all of his running away when he was younger had affected Dean. "Dean, I've never been more sure of anything in my life. I know I left before, but back then I was just a kid and there wasn't so much at stake. I want this with you, and I'm not leaving again." Then an upsetting thought occurred to him. "Do you want this with me?"

"Yes, of course I do, Sam. But I don't want to start this thing up with you if you're not sure that it's what you really want. Like I said; if we start doing this, there's no going back."

Sam nodded. "It's what I want. I don't want to go back. I'm sure."

Dean's mouth dropped open, his round eyes and face showing an expression of complete disbelief. He quickly worked to compose his face and then turned back to the bandage and continued to wrap. "Okay."

Sam looked down for a moment. With Dean seeming so skittish right then, this probably wasn't the best time to be making demands. But he didn't want to feel like he was roping Dean into something without him first understanding all of the terms, either. "There's just one thing."

Dean finished wrapping his arm and tied the bandage off at one end. He looked at Sam questioningly. "What is it?"

He held his breath, knowing that, if Dean had any reserves about them taking this step in their relationship, he could use this request as an excuse to back out and end what they had before it even really began. "I don't want to share. If we do this, I want it to be just you and me and no one else." Dean smirked and let out a little laugh, and it made Sam feel a little indignant. "Is that funny to you?"

Dean smiled wider at Sam's obvious anger. "No. I knew you wouldn't want to share. For the record, I don't, either."

"Oh." Sam stepped out of his pants and headed for the dresser. He could feel Dean's gaze on him as he bent down to open the bottom drawer. He quickly grabbed the clothes he needed and then turned his face to look amusedly at his brother. "Like what you see?" Dean coughed and looked away, his face turning slightly red. Sam smiled, feeling enamored with Dean's sudden uncharacteristic coyness. "Like I said, it's okay, Dean; I want you to look."

"I know. Guess I'm still getting used to it."

Sam stood up and began putting on his boxers. "You didn't have any trouble looking while we were making out in the Impala."

"What can I say? I'm a complex man. Besides, that was different; you were already on top of me and we were both worked up."

Sam had his jeans pulled up around his hips but hadn't yet gotten them buttoned or zipped. He walked over to Dean that way and slid his hands around the sides of Dean's waist. "I can be on top of you again, if you want."

He leaned forward and lightly kissed the sensitive spot on Dean's neck just below his ear and he heard Dean growl. "Mm, Sam, case, we're on a case."

Sam pulled back and sighed. "Okay, you're right." He zipped up his pants then and backed up a few steps to give Dean some space to change his own clothes. "So…burning the necklace did jack."

Dean yanked down his pants and then stepped around Sam to get to the dresser. Sam's eyes followed his package. Even limp, he could tell that Dean was pretty big; it was no wonder he was so sore the morning after they had sex.

"Sam? You listening?"

Sam closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. "Uh, yeah, sorry, go on, you were saying?"

Dean smirked as he grabbed his clothes from the top drawer. "I was saying that we didn't exactly get to do a whole lot of damage to that necklace. I mean, we salted and burned it thinking that there had to be a hair or a flap of skin in it keeping old Berta going, but what if the actual necklace is her remains? I think you might be right when you said we might have to melt the whole thing down. Which means we need a furnace, so unless you've got a spare one of those lying around…I don't know what we're going to do."

Sam walked over to his discarded pair of pants and pulled his phone out from the pocket. "I'll put in a call to Bobby." He hadn't thought much about it when he'd said it; after all, it was like second nature for them to call Bobby for help whenever they were stumped on a case, but as he flipped open his phone and began paging through the list of contacts he felt that same knot of anxiety in his stomach he'd felt before. "Bobby's really okay with it?"

Dean smirked and nodded. "Trust me, he's okay with it."

Sam wondered just what exactly Dean meant by that as he counted the rings, waiting for Bobby to pick up. After the third ring, he heard a gruff voice on the other end. "Hello?"

"Hey, Bobby, it's Sam."

"Yeah, I figured from the caller ID. How you boys doing?"

"Yeah, um, great, we're doing great. How are you?"

"Well, you know me, it's one big, long Mardi Gras dance party over here."

Sam pulled a face; he never knew what to say to Bobby whenever he started talking about his legs. "So, uh, we're working on a case and –"

"And you thought you could use my help. Yeah, I know. It's the only reason you idjits call me, anymore. What's the case?" Sam quickly relayed to Bobby the details, carefully omitting Chuck's story and the make-out session in the Impala. Bobby listened patiently. "And this necklace, you said there's a stone on it?"

"Yeah, an onyx stone."

"Well, that's your problem right there. Onyx has the ability to trap energy; it's probably what your ghost is haunting. Now, to get rid of her, you'll probably have to find something hot enough to melt down your stone, which I'm guessing your boys don't have on hand. I should be able to come up with something over here on my end, but in the meantime you're going to want to make a curse box to keep murder and mayhem from following you while you're on your way over here. Go out and get a small box, the material doesn't matter, and some white paint, then call me back and I'll tell you what to paint."

"Okay, thanks Bobby, we will."

"By the way, Sam – how you boys doing, you know, otherwise?"

Sam felt his cheeks flush. "Good, Bobby. We're – uh – we're real – real good."

"Yeah? Put your brother on for a minute, would ya?"

Sam silently handed Dean the phone, a look of dread on his face. Dean, reluctantly, took it and held it up to his ear. "Yeah." Sam could faintly make out Bobby's voice on the other end, but he couldn't exactly make out the words. "Yeah, we figured it out. Yes, we. Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't. I know. I know, Bobby. Right. Yeah, I'm sorry about that; we'll try and call more. Okay." Dean held the phone back out to Sam. "He wants to talk to you."

Sam took the phone. "Yeah?"

"So, you and Dean had a good talk?"

"Um, yeah we did."

"Alright, glad to hear it. I'll be seeing you boys soon. By the way, when you're both here, I don't wanna hear any commotion coming from that spare bedroom at night when I'm trying to sleep. Call me back when you're ready for instructions on how to build that curse box." Sam heard a click as Bobby hung up the phone and Sam slapped his phone shut. "Well, that was awkward."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You're telling me."


	15. Living for Tonight

They went to a hardware store a couple of streets away to get the necessary supplies for their curse box. Half an hour later when they got back to their room, Dean held the necklace with a towel, as if it was an actual cursed object, and dropped it into the empty little, black toolbox they had bought. Sam, although thoroughly dreading another awkward conversation with Bobby, managed to stay on the phone with him for about twenty minutes as he left him painstakingly specific instructions on how exactly to draw the binding magic. Fortunately, Bobby seemed just as unwilling to once again bring up the dreaded subject as he was and they got off the phone the instant Sam finished the last detail on the curse box.

Sam dropped the paintbrush and stood up from the uncomfortable desk chair, stretching his cramped limbs. For the first time since he had started painting the intricate symbols on the toolbox, Sam looked over at Dean where he had been sitting on the bed with his legs stretched out in front of him the whole time and suddenly noticed that he was looking over a stapled manuscript with a look of utmost fascination on his face.

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Is that the story?"

Dean looked over the paper at Sam. "You're only just now realizing that I'm looking at it?"

Sam gestured to the finished, latched curse box. "Been busy."

Dean smirked and shook his head slightly, then once again looked down at the story. "Obviously. Yeah, I didn't have time to finish it because someone attacked me while I was reading it. I got it out of the car when I grabbed that damned necklace."

"Oh." Sam walked over to Dean and sat by his feet at the foot of the bed. "Is it – I mean," he scratched the back of his head, "how's it going?"

Dean once more looked up from his story. "Man, I gotta tell ya, I really wish I remembered this. You are one needy little slut."

Sam's face and neck suddenly felt like they were on fire from the instant blush that rushed to them. "No I'm not."

Dean grinned wickedly and looked down at the manuscript. _"'Oh god Dean, yes!'"_ Dean read in a mocking tone. _"'You hit it, right there. Jesus, feels so good! I want you now, I want you inside me! Please, fuck me, Dean.'"_ Dean looked triumphantly up at Sam. "That's right, baby," he added teasingly, "beg for it."

Sam stared at the floor, trying to will the earth to open up and swallow him whole. "I'm not usually like that," he mumbled.

Dean smile lost its taunting edge as he noted his brother's obvious embarrassment. "Yeah, I'm sure Chuck isn't really doing it justice."

"Oh no," Sam groaned. He had just about forgotten about Chuck. He had seen the whole thing, probably even up to and including everything that had just happened in the Impala. "We can't ever see Chuck again."

Dean frowned. "Yeah, that is a little embarrassing, but it's not like he hasn't seen us have sex before over the years. Now it's just gay…and with each other." He shrugged. "In any case, he's going to have to learn to live with it." Dean started flipping back through the pages of the manuscript and unexpectedly chuckled. "Although, this had to be one hell of an unpleasant dream for him to have to go through over and over again. It's no wonder he didn't believe it would ever happen. You know, this is pretty hot."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, from what I read, it was pretty graphic."

"How far did you get?"

"Um…" This was weird; he was talking to his brother about…well, basically about porn, written about them, by some other guy who they barely knew. "I think we were about to have sex."

"Was that before or after I fingered you open?"

What did he just say? "Before you what?"

Dean grinned widely, relishing Sam's surprise. "Well Sammy, never tried anal, have you?"

Sam, still furiously blushing, looked away, which, he was sure, told Dean all he wanted to know. No, he never had tried anal, but he'd always been a little curious about it. At one point he had planned to ask Jessica what she thought about trying it with him, but she was nearly as sexually inexperienced as he was at the time and he worried that bringing up the idea might freak her out.

"Well, I guess you have."

"Yeah, I've done it a couple of times, but by then I already had a pretty good idea of what I should be doing." He laughed and shook his head. "You really don't watch enough porn."

"Um, so…" Yeah, not responding to that last comment. "I guess you must like anal then."

Dean shrugged. "It's alright. I haven't gotten to the end of this yet, but I can already tell that I liked it a lot more with you than I did with anyone else."

Sam suddenly thought about that guy who Dean had admitted to making out with behind a bar the week before and it made him wonder. The two of them had spent four years apart while he was away at Stanford, with the exception of one brief "visit" (if it could even be called that,) two years in, and in that time he was sure that Dean was off to himself a lot. If he could have gotten stinking drunk and then had sex with him, then why not with some other guy? "So, the others were women?"

Dean looked at him for a moment with an expression of surprise that quickly turned into amusement. "Yeah, the others were women; I've never been with a guy. What about you? Ever experiment a little while you were away at Stanford?"

He shook his head. "Nah; I wasn't interested in any of the guys and I didn't really experiment with much of anything in college."

Dean smirked. "Wow, you really wasted that free ride they gave you."

He could have told Dean that Stanford had given him a full-ride so he could get his degree and not so he could fuck, smoke, and snort everything he saw into oblivion, but he decided against it. Instead, he scooted up on the bed so that he was positioned beside Dean's torso. With one hand he grabbed the manuscript from him and tossed it on the floor and with the other he began rubbing his hand against Dean's still semi-hard length. "Well, one thing I'm not going to waste…"

Dean sighed in mock disappointment. "Am I ever going to get through that story without being attacked?"

Sam leaned over and tenderly kissed Dean on the neck. "Probably not."

Dean closed his eyes and leaned back a little. "Good."

Sam moved his hand from Dean's hardening length to unbutton his pants and then he slowly pulled down the fly. Dean's boxers tented as his erection finally sprang free from the confines of his jeans. Sam reached in through the slit, gently running his fingers up and down the smooth, soft skin of the shaft a few times before pulling it out from his boxers. Once Dean's cock was out, he turned so he could watch himself as he gripped it tighter and began to move his hand up and down the long, thick length in a slow, teasing rhythm. Touching him, feeling his arousal in his hand like this, was incredible. Sam pushed down on the crotch of his own jeans to try to relieve the pressure on his hardened cock.

Dean moaned. "Shit, Sam."

He saw the pleasure on Dean's face and began to move his hand a little faster. "You like that, Dean?"

Dean grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down towards him. "C'mere," he growled.

Sam laid down on his side so he could face him, then reached down and continued to stroke. Dean looked into Sam's eyes with a look of utmost seriousness and began slowly tracing his fingers down Sam's chest and stomach before coming to rest on the waistband of Sam's jeans. He dipped the tips of his fingers inside, tentatively caressing the top of his groin and running his index finger along about an inch of the thin trail of light hair that dipped down to the bigger tangle of dark pubic hair underneath.

Sam moaned. "You're teasing me."

Dean's face was still serious as he brought his hand out of Sam's pants, then undid the button and unzipped the fly. "I like to take my time, Sammy."

He slipped his hand into Sam's jeans and began rubbing his hand in a circular motion over his boxers. Sam moaned as soon as he felt Dean's hot hand on him. Even if it was through a layer of clothes, Dean was touching him, finally touching him, and he almost couldn't believe it. He was perfectly content to get off just like that, lying beside Dean as they touched each other, but then Dean did something that surprised him. He scooted his body back away from Sam, pulling his cock out of Sam's grasp, then rose to his knees and climbed on top of him. Supporting himself with one arm, he used the other to lift Sam's shirt up over his chest and stomach. Sam sat up a little and pulled the shirt over his head and then watched as Dean's eyes drifted over his body, taking it all in, before he took off his own shirt and then slid on top of him.

He ground himself up against Sam and took his lips in a searing hot kiss. "God Sam, I want you." He kissed and nipped Sam's jaw, then kept moving his lips downward and began laying kisses all down Sam's neck. Sam felt his heart skip a beat and he gasped and closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of Dean's lips on his body. "Wanna satisfy you." Dean's tooth lightly grazed his nipple, sending a wave of pleasure and a little pain through his body and making Sam moan. He felt Dean's mouth migrate to the center of his chest and then continue travelling south, moving towards his stomach. "Wanna make you come so hard for me." His tongue dipped into Sam's bellybutton, and then he fastened his mouth around it and sucked hard.

Sam involuntarily bucked his hips forward. "Jesus Christ," he moaned.

Dean pulled his mouth away and Sam felt his tongue travel from just below his bellybutton to the waistband of his boxers and Sam's breath hitched as he thought about what he was pretty sure Dean had in mind. "Mm, Dean, gonna suck me?"

Sam looked down at Dean's face as he dragged his tongue over the cotton of Sam's boxers, and then stopped at the slit. "Ask me for it."

This was way more than Sam expected Dean would be okay with so soon and it was making him feel nearly delirious with lust; he was pretty sure that right then he would jump through a ring of fire for it if Dean asked. "Please suck me, Dean."

He saw Dean smirk and then slide his tongue inside the slit of his boxers, slowly running the tip of it and down Sam's length. Sam moaned at the torture and Dean, seeming to take pity on him, grabbed the waistband of Sam's pants and boxers and pulled them down to his thighs and Sam's cock sprung free, already painfully hard and dripping a little pre-cum. Dean kissed each of Sam's hipbones, licking and sucking on the skin as he did so, taking his time and driving Sam into a frenzied series of moans.

"Shit, Dean! Please!"

Dean wrapped his hand around Sam's length and began jerking him slowly. "It's okay Sammy, I got ya."

He moved his mouth to Sam's erection and licked the glistening pre-cum off the tip, then swirled his tongue around the head and slid it past his lips and into his mouth. At feeling the wet heat of Dean's mouth, Sam had to resist the urge to thrust his hips upwards; he knew this was probably Dean's first time giving a man oral and he didn't want to make him gag. He could feel Dean putting a little more of him into his mouth with each time he sunk down until all of his head and about an inch of the shaft was inside and he used his hand for the rest, stroking all of him that he couldn't fit in his mouth. He sucked him hard and fast without any more teasing and when Sam thought it couldn't feel any better Dean moaned while his mouth was on him and he practically screamed in pleasure as he writhed on the bed and grabbed handfuls of the bed sheets.

"God Dean, yes, s-so – so good! Yes! Fuck Dean, suck me, feels so good!"

There was a loud bang on the wall from the neighbor in the room next door, but they both ignored it. Sam looked down then and watched as Dean bobbed back and forth on him, his beautiful, pouty lips wrapped around his cock and his lust-blown green eyes staring up at him and he thought that it was the most erotic thing he'd seen in his life so far. Dean was on his knees, using his legs and one elbow for support to hold him up while he straddled Sam's legs and he saw Dean fisting his own cock with the hand that wasn't on him. He grabbed Dean by the shoulders then and tried pulling him up.

Dean let Sam's erection fall out of his mouth with a little, wet, popping noise and looked up at him questioningly. "Everything alright, Sam?"

"Yeah." He pulled up on Dean's shoulders again and this time Dean willingly crawled up towards him. Once Dean was lying facing him on his side, Sam wrapped his hand around Dean's hard length. There would be plenty of nights for Dean to suck him off, but not tonight. "It's just this time I want to get you off, too."

Dean grinned and wrapped his hand around Sam. "Alright; I guess we could do that."

Sam moved in and captured Dean's mouth in a kiss and they laid there, kissing passionately and moaning into each other's mouths as they stroked each other faster and faster.

After a couple of minutes, Sam broke the kiss, panting heavily. "Faster, Dean! God, I'm gonna come!"

Dean, who was bucking his hips into Sam's hand, fisted Sam faster. "Oh God, Sam! Oh God!"

Sam came first but Dean followed soon after, their releases hitting each other's stomachs and the sheets between them. They moved onto their backs, panting heavily as they heard the banging on the walls from now both sets of neighbors and some shouting from one who they could hear was threatening to go to the motel manager.

Dean chuckled. "Damn dude, we're never going to be able to keep it down at Bobby's!"

Sam grinned and rose from the bed, wanting to head to the bathroom to clean himself off. "You're right. I'm glad we found out now because I think if we made this much noise at Bobby's, he might actually shoot us!"

Dean got up and went to follow Sam. "Yeah, I guess we'll have to figure something out when we're there."

Sam really wanted a shower; he felt sticky and gross from having two loads of his and Dean's come on him, but he felt too tired to really work up the motivation. The day had worn him out: he'd been up since 6:00 A.M. when he and Dean had woken up to go the police station and since then he'd gone on a hunt, been attacked by a ghost, and come twice. He took a washcloth, wet it, threw some soap on in, and cleaned up his chest, stomach, and groin area, then threw it in the sink. Dean picked up the washcloth, wrung it out, threw more soap on in, and did the same.

Sam stood in the doorway and watched him. "Think I'm going to go to bed; you wanna join me?"

"Well, I can't exactly sleep on my own bed with the come all over it. I'll be in in a minute."

Sam threw off what clothes he still had on and climbed into bed naked. A few minutes later, Dean emerged from the bathroom, shucked off his own clothes, and climbed into bed next to Sam. He was pretty sure that Dean was most likely going to try to maintain some kind of protective tough-guy façade, but Dean once again surprised him. He pushed his chest to Sam's back, wrapped his arm around his waist, and then nuzzled his face into his hair and inhaled deeply.

He kissed Sam's hair. "Night, Sam."

Sam smiled into the pillow. For the first time in his life, he finally felt like he was exactly where he needed to be, like he was finally home. "Night, Dean."


	16. There is A New World Opening for Me

Dean awoke the next morning feeling peaceful and well-rested. He looked over to his left where Sam was laid out beside him on his stomach with his face turned toward him as he slept looking completely happy and serene. Dean looked back up at the ceiling, put his hands behind his head, and smiled. It wasn't that he'd come to accept that starting up a relationship with Sam wasn't wrong; he had just decided that he no longer cared about the wrongness of it. Sam obviously didn't care and had in fact seemed to have come to the conclusion that, as long as their parts couldn't work together to make a baby, it wasn't even wrong. Bobby didn't want to see or hear it take place but other than that he didn't seem to mind, and Castiel even appeared to think that it was, if not right, then at least somehow normal. And hell, brother or no, Sam was his soulmate so maybe it really was okay and maybe all this time he'd been fighting a battle that didn't need to be fought. And if it wasn't okay, well, he had sold his soul and Sam had started the apocalypse, so they'd already bought themselves a couple of first-class tickets to Hell by now anyways.

So, last night as he said good-bye to Bobby he had finally come to the conclusion that, sick and wrong or not, he wanted this and so did Sam and it didn't seem like anyone was surprised by that revelation, nor would they stand in their way or be too upset if they acted upon it. Being with Sam felt good and right and it lifted the heavy air of tension and awkwardness between them. So, that was that. He wasn't about to go out into the parking lot and shout "I'm in love with my brother!" or make-out with him in public or anything, but he was more than content to quietly belong to Sam and have Sam belong to him in the same way for the rest of their lives. And really, when it got right down to it, it wasn't much of a change for them. They had belonged to each other ever since the night their mom died when Dean was four and their father had thrust Sam into his arms and told him to run. Maybe it was even before that. Either way, he knew that no matter what he did or how hard he worked to the contrary, he always had been and would always continue to be Sam's. Knowing all of that felt pretty damn good, even if it was scary as hell.

Sam stirred and cracked an eye open. He looked over at him and, despite Dean's obvious good mood, very quickly looked worried. "Hey Dean, were you up all night?"

"Nah, just woke up a minute ago. If you want first shower, I think I might get us some breakfast."

"Um sure. Or…" Sam thoughtfully chewed the inside of his mouth as if he was mulling over whether or not he wanted to say something.

Dean looked at him interestedly. "Or what?"

Sam didn't meet Dean's eyes. "I could get a shower and…you could join me."

Hmm, a sexy shower with Sam; why hadn't he thought of that? He raised his eyebrows and smirked. "Well Sammy, you dirty, dirty boy, you." Sam's cheeks began to slowly turn a bright shade of pink and he looked away. Given how aggressive Dean could already tell Sam was in the bedroom, he was just a little surprised at how shy and reserved about sex he still was. He rolled on top of him, feeling his morning erection on his thigh. "Come on Sammy, don't be embarrassed." He turned Sam's head towards him and gave him a quick kiss. "Yeah, let's grab a shower."

He laid quick little kisses down Sam's jaw and neck and Sam let out a little moan. "Keep that up and we won't even make it to the shower."

He rolled off of Sam and back to his side of the bed and sat up. As tempting as it sounded to stay in bed with him all day, he really wanted to take a shower. He felt grimy from the day before and even after washing up he was still a little sticky. Sam stood up and stretched and Dean couldn't help but stare at his lean, muscular, beautiful body. Maybe they could stay in bed all day after they took their shower.

Sam caught him staring and then looked down at his own body as if he were looking for something to be there. "What?"

Dean chuckled and slowly shook his head. "You really don't know how fucking gorgeous you are, do you?" He stood up and began walking around the bed, making his way towards Sam. "Now why are you blushing?"

Sam, who was indeed blushing and hiding a little behind his hair, mumbled, "Guess I'm just not used to hearing a lot of people say that."

Dean pushed the hair out of Sam's face. "You need a haircut." He grabbed the sides of Sam's face and gave him a hard, closed-mouth kiss. "And get used to it. The only reason you haven't heard it more before is because you're too shy." He stepped back and began heading towards the bathroom. "Now, come on; I feel kinda grody."

Dean was already standing underneath the hot stream of water in the shower by the time Sam joined him. Dean watched him as he stepped in, already visibly aroused and shamelessly eyeing up his wet, naked body. He wrapped his arms around Dean and pulled him in for a kiss as the hot water rained down on their bodies. Sam's kiss was much less hard and needy than in previous times when he had kissed him; this time he seemed to just be enjoying himself and taking his time. They stood there holding each other and kissing lazily under the spray. It felt nice being able to enjoy each other without that desperate sense of urgency and hot need that came with the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not they were going to get to have each other in this way again. Dean wrapped his arms around Sam and pushed their bodies flush against each other, enjoying the wetness of their bodies and the way Sam's erection insistently pressed against his own.

Then an idea came to him and he leaned back, breaking the kiss. He reached behind Sam and grabbed the bar of soap resting on the plastic ledge against the wall, rubbed the bar between his hands, making sure to create a good lather on them, and began running his soapy hands over Sam's chest. He slid his hands across the broad expanse of his shoulders and down his finely sculpted pecs, then lathered his hands up again and began running them over the finely-toned muscles of his stomach.

Sam was looking down at his body, watching Dean's hands slide over his skin. "Mm, think I'm dirty just a little lower."

Dean smirked. "You really are one needy little slut."

Sam reached around Dean and grabbed his ass firmly with both hands. "Only for you."

They teased and played with each other as they stood under the hot spray, kissing, soaping each other up, grinding their soapy, wet bodies against each other, and slowly massaging each other's erections. Eventually they began stroking each other faster and faster until they both came into each other's wet, soapy hands. The water began to turn cold just as they were finishing washing the soap off of each other's bodies.

Dean shut off the water and stepped out of the tub. He began toweling himself off. "I think I could get used to this."

Sam stepped out of the shower behind him and reached out for a towel. He chuckled. "Yeah, me too."

Dean turned to look at Sam as he toweled himself off. Sam was smiling and his body was relaxed. Seeing him so happy made him think back to how determined he had been to never let any of this happen between them and it all felt like wasted time. Sam was happy. He was happy. All of the other details could be hammered out later.

Sam looked up and saw Dean watching him. "You horny again?" he asked in a slightly surprised tone.

Dean shook his head. "Nah; think I'm gonna get dressed."

The clock on the nightstand read 11:00 AM. Shit, they'd been in the shower for over an hour and, even if they hauled ass, it was going to be at least a fourteen hour drive to Bobby's. He supposed there was really no need to rush but if they took too long then Bobby would probably have a pretty accurate picture in his head as to why and, when he thought about that, it just made Dean wholly uncomfortable.

At that point, Sam stepped into the room, using the towel to dry off his ears. "Is that really the time? Huh, it'll be tomorrow by the time we get to Bobby's." He shook the hair out of his face, then walked over to Dean and sunk to his knees. "Guess there's no point in starting out now, then."

Dean looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. " _You_ horny again?" Sam was already half-hard and touching himself. "Christ Sam, you're like a fiend!" Dean was by now reasonably sure that, despite Sam's shy, nice-guy nature, his sex-drive far surpassed his own and he was beginning to wonder if he was going to be able to keep up.

Sam began licking the sensitive head of Dean's still limp cock, trying to coax it back into hardness. "Are you going to punch me if I tell you that I'm going to suck your dick?"

"Ha, ha, Sam."

Sam grinned at his own joke and then took the head into his mouth. Dean could tell right away that Sam was clearly inexperienced at doing this as he uncertainly wrapped his lips around him and sucked a little sloppily, but watching Sam with his mouth on him while he touched himself, so clearly _wanting_ him, was enough to make Dean begin to feel aroused again, despite his recent orgasm. Ah, to Hell with it; Bobby could wait, they were going to take their time.

.

It wasn't until ten o'clock the next morning when Dean stepped through the front door of Bobby's house, duffel bag in hand.

Bobby greeted him at the door. "I was beginning to wonder if I should give you boys a call to see if you were alright."

Dean set his bag down in the living room and gave Bobby a wide smile. "Well, we were all the way over in Colorado."

The front door slammed shut as Sam stepped into the house, carrying his own duffel. He shot Bobby a hesitant smile. "Hey, Bobby."

Bobby smiled kindly at him. "Hey Sam; good to see ya, boy."

It was evident from Bobby's look, tone, and body language that he meant what he said and Sam relaxed noticeably. He then flashed Bobby a genuine smile, grabbed their duffels and looked happily over at Dean. "I'll just throw these in the spare room and be right back down."

Dean surreptitiously craned his neck a little to watch Sam's ass as he headed up the stairs.

"Come on, haven't you appreciated his ass enough over the past day and a half?" Bobby growled crankily. "I assume that's why you boys took so long in getting your lazy asses over here in the first place."

Dean looked down, feeling a little embarrassed. "Sorry, Bobby."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "You don't have to be sorry." He rolled his chair over to the fridge, grabbed three beers, came back, and set them down on his desk. "I'm glad you boys are happy. Just…keep it down in front of me, would ya?"

Dean smiled. He grabbed one of the beers from the table and screwed off the lid, which he then threw onto the desk. "Deal."

.

Bobby hadn't yet found a surefire way to destroy their necklace by the time they arrived so the three of them spent the rest of the morning and afternoon buried in books. That evening Bobby made them all steak for dinner and the three of them sat around eating and making small talk about past hunts they'd been on, news from hunters they all knew, and the like when Bobby suddenly brought up news about a possible new hunt that he'd come across in the paper. In Wellington Ohio some creature chased a man through the woods, into his house, up the stairs, and then ripped his head off in his bedroom.

"They're calling it a bear attack," Bobby finished.

At hearing this, Dean made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough as he nearly choked on the piece of steak in his mouth. Worried, Sam gave him a hard clap on the back and Dean coughed, then swallowed, and finally burst out into uproarious laughter. "They can't really think that's what it is."

"No, probably not; most likely it's what they're just saying in the papers because they don't know what to call it. But it smells like a job if you boys are interested."

Sam nodded. "Sounds good. You wanna work it with us?"

"Nah." He jerked his head in the direction to where the curse box lay in the next room. "I gotta stay behind and find a way to get rid of that thing. I put out a call to a couple of hunters who might be able to help, should be hearing from them within the next day or so."

Sam swallowed a mouthful of green beans. "Great, thanks for helping us again, Bobby; we really appreciate it. I guess we'll start heading out there tomorrow morning."

After dinner, Sam and Dean did the dishes while Bobby hid himself behind another book about the disposal of magical objects and then afterwards they all settled in to the living room and watched some television. Sam headed up to bed early, clearly feigning sleepiness and Dean, knowing what was on Sam's mind, purposely stayed downstairs until Bobby finally told him that he too was turning in for the night. Begrudgingly, Dean made it up the stairs and hoped that he'd waited long enough that Sam really had gotten drowsy and gone to sleep. When he opened the door to the bedroom, however, he saw that Sam was not only awake, but also ready for some vigorous exercise. He was wearing nothing but a short-sleeved t-shirt and boxers, which were pushed down to his knees as he lay sprawled out on the bed with his eyes closed slowly stroking himself. At the sound of the door opening, Sam's eyes shot open and met Dean's, who was standing in the doorway gaping open-mouthed at the sexy display in front of him. After a moment, Dean remembered himself and hurriedly shut the door behind him.

"Sam? Have you been touching yourself this whole time?"

Sam took his hand off of his fully hard cock. "No, I just started. I was beginning to think you were going to sleep downstairs, so I was going to try to get myself off, but it's not working too well. I wanna be inside you, Dean."

Dean swallowed hard. "Shit Sam, you know I'm not one to usually turn down sex, but…"

Sam nodded. "Do you want to be inside me instead? I get it if it's too weird for you to do it that way just yet."

Dean shook his head, amazed at how well Sam knew him. And that was part of the problem, but not the biggest part at the time being. "Bobby…"

"We can be quiet."

Dean gave Sam a half-smirk, walked over to him, and sat on the bed next to him. "Yeah, I'm sure we can." He kissed Sam on the forehead. "But I don't want to be quiet. I want to make you scream. Okay?"

Sam eyed him suspiciously. "You really want this?"

Dean nodded and smiled. "I really want this. Tomorrow when we leave here, I promise I'll fuck you into the mattress."

Sam laughed and gave Dean a slow, teasing, open-mouthed kiss. "Real nice, Dean."

Dean smirked, cupped Sam's face in his hands and moved in to kiss him again. "Aw, come on Sammy; you know you love it."


	17. Feels Like the First Time

When Sam awoke the next morning to the smell of soap, leather, and gun oil, he smiled and pushed his head further down into the pillow. Dean lay behind him with his arm thrown over his middle, chest pushed up to his back, morning erection pressed against his ass. From the evenness of his breathing it seemed that he was still asleep, but then he felt Dean's body stir and heard him yawn.

"What time is it?"

What time was it? Fucked if he knew, but he wasn't ready to get up just yet. "It's still pretty early Dean; go back to sleep."

He felt Dean's body twist away from him as he turned around to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand. "Dammit, it's already 9:30. We were supposed to head out early so we could get the jump on that case. I checked the maps last night and it looks like it's gonna be at least a good fifteen hour drive to Wellington, Ohio from here."

Sam rolled over and threw an arm over Dean's stomach, then quickly slid his hand down to the hard length tenting his boxers. "So?"

When Dean looked over at him his face was a mixture of surprise, amusement, arousal, and annoyance. "Do you ever think of anything besides sex in that gigantic noggin of yours?"

Sam shot him what he hoped was a sexy smile, sidled over to him, and lightly grazed his teeth along Dean's earlobe, then darted his tongue out and licked the spot where his teeth had just been and lightly exhaled into his ear. "What do you think?" he asked as he began slowly moving his hand up and down Dean's shaft.

Dean moaned. "Christ Sam, you're killing me. Come on; we gotta get up and I don't want to be walking around with a hard-on all day."

Dean swatted his hand away and Sam pulled back, feeling only slightly rejected. He knew Dean was right; they had a job to do and if they didn't get on the road and start working on the case, the monster they were hunting was likely to take another victim or might even move on to the next town before they got there. The smell of coffee began wafting up to their room and downstairs they could hear Bobby as he loudly banged things around in the kitchen. Sam watched Dean as he threw off the covers, picked up a pair of jeans from off the floor, and slid them on, trying to stuff himself and his erection inside them. He sighed and rolled out of bed.

"You know, I never used to understand why Bobby did that to wake us up," Dean mused.

Sam smirked. Since he'd hooked back up with Dean after leaving Stanford, he'd noticed that whenever they visited Bobby he had made a habit of waking them up in the morning by making a racket in the kitchen whenever he and Dean slept late. He could never figure out why Bobby had changed up his routine from just knocking on the door and then barging in and telling the two of them to get their lazy asses out of bed. Back then it had never occurred to either of them that Bobby might have just been afraid that he'd walk in on something like the scene this morning; the two of them lying in bed together half-naked and holding each other like lovers as they slept. If only for all those years Bobby had known that they had really just been wasting time by lying on opposite sides of the bed, making sure that not even as much as their toes touched.

"Me neither. You gonna head straight down?"

"Yeah, I think so; I'm pretty hungry."

"Okay, think I'm gonna go grab a shower then."

Dean smiled, walked over to him, then grabbed the back of his head and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. "See ya in a bit." Dean then gave him a playful swat on the ass and headed out of the bedroom.

They left the house at around 11:00 A.M. with Bobby's parting words, "Watch out for each other, ya idjits," hitting their backs as they walked out the front door and towards the Impala. Dean played his music and they spoke little, an air of tension once again creeping back into the car. Sam's mind kept replaying Dean's words last night: "Tomorrow when we leave here, I promise I'll fuck you into the mattress" and he felt his stomach twist in a mixture of nervousness and excitement that he'd not felt since the night he'd lost his virginity. It wasn't just that he'd never, to his memory, been with a guy before. This was Dean, the person he'd been closest with his whole life and there was a lot more at stake. What if it wasn't any good? Or worse, what if afterwards he would wake up and find Dean missing, out getting drunk and having sex with some random stripper or barfly because he was having some sort of freak-out over what had just happened? He knew Dean promised that it would be just the two of them, but all bets were off when Dean was confused and scared. Concerns like that were what had Sam trying to hold back and let Dean do the leading as to how far their physical relationship went. True, Dean was continuing to surprise Sam with the things that he was already okay with, but last night it was Sam who had brought up sex and Dean had merely agreed to do it later. He hoped that he wasn't pushing him into something he wasn't ready for; he wasn't sure if he could handle the fall-out of that.

.

Later that night as Sam lay naked on his back in a king-sized bed of a run-down motel in Gary, Indiana, his brow wet with sweat and most of the rest of his body wet with Dean's saliva, he no longer worried about whether or not Dean really wanted to have sex. At the moment, Dean was beside the bed and kneeling in front of his duffel, no doubt rooting around for his bottle of lube. He finally found what he was looking for and then came back and knelt down at the foot of the bed. He lifted Sam's legs and threw one over his shoulder, then picked up the small bottle, heavily a finger, and with one of them began rubbing in a circular motion around Sam's outer rim.

"Ready?"

Sam nodded and Dean pushed the finger inside. It felt weird, but Sam was surprised to find that it didn't hurt; he just felt some pressure. Dean began slowly moving his finger around inside him and after a few minutes he pulled out, added more lube to his fingers, and pushed back in with two fingers. Sam felt his muscles tighten around the intrusion and his erection flagged, but he tried his best not to wince in discomfort.

Dean immediately stopped. "You okay, Sammy?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Dean leaned forward and ran his tongue from base to tip along the blue vein on the underside of Sam's cock. "Try to relax, okay?"

Sam nodded and closed his eyes and then felt himself being engulfed in the sweet, wet heat of Dean's mouth that moved up and down on him slowly but sucked him but hard and sure. Even the first time they tried this, Dean was pretty good at it. Of course, Sam wasn't going to be picky about getting a blow job and he probably would have liked just about anything Dean tried, but he also seemed to know instinctively what to do to make it especially good for him and bring him the most pleasure. He used his tongue, sometimes licking the head and slit and sometimes just flattening it against him as he used just the right amount of suction and speed to bring him slowly to the edge. Sam felt his body begin to relax and that's when Dean put his fingers back inside him as he continued to suck him, opening him up more by moving them in a scissoring motion. After a few minutes, Sam's ass started to feel looser and the pressure and friction started to feel good. Then Dean moved a certain way and Sam gasped in pleasure at the spot his fingers found.

"Holy shit! Dean!"

Dean's fingers moved faster and faster, making sure to brush that same spot every time while his mouth also picked up speed and sucked him harder, hollowing out his cheeks and Sam couldn't stop himself from rocking his hips a little, no matter how hard he tried to keep them still. He threw his head back, moaning loudly and panting in pleasure, screaming out one word directives that Dean was already doing, calling out Dean's name, shouting nonsense words, and just making noise in general because he couldn't stop himself and holy shit, this felt incredible, he was so close, so close so close…

He tried to push Dean's head up to get him to stop, but it was too late; he was already coming. He threw his head back and his mouth went slack in a silent scream. Dean continued to suck through all his waves of orgasm and only when he was completely empty and going limp did he finally release him, licking all the remaining drops of come from Sam's now overly sensitive head. Sam relaxed back on the bed, feeling all the muscles that had just been so tightly clenched right before orgasm loosen. Dean slowly withdrew his fingers from his hole.

"Sorry," Sam mumbled.

Dean wiped his mouth and grinned. "Don't be."

Dean climbed up to Sam and tentatively leaned in for a kiss. It was clear from Dean's red cheeks, huge dilated pupils giving him a lusty stare, and his self-satisfied smirk that making Sam come for him was a huge turn-on. Sam grabbed the back of Dean's head as he kissed him back hard, licking the taste of himself in Dean's mouth. Dean gently cupped his face his hand and soothed his fingers along his jawline as they continued to kiss. It always surprised Sam how gentle and loving Dean was and he wondered if he was just this way with him or if this was his style with every person he'd been with. Even though Sam usually preferred things a little a little faster-paced and rougher, he still enjoyed sharing this softness with Dean. He also understood that he couldn't be rough with him, at least, not until Dean felt comfortable enough to not always be in control.

Dean broke the kiss and Sam found himself looking at Dean's serious face and into his dark, lust-blown eyes. "Ready?"

Sam nodded. Although he still vividly remembered how much he hurt after the last time, he still couldn't wait to take this last step with Dean at a time when it would be something secret and intimate that they shared and remembered afterwards. Dean gave him one last, quick kiss and then retreated to the foot of the bed to where the bottle of lube was, but instead of picking it up he grabbed a small, white, square package that Sam hadn't noticed before. He held up the condom and began to tear open the packaging.

Sam nudged him with his foot. "Dean…"

Dean stopped in mid-rip. "What?"

Sam looked at the condom and shook his head.

"You don't wanna use a condom?"

"It's just you and me, right?"

Dean smirked. "Yeah, Sammy. Just us."

He tossed the condom behind him, then grabbed the lube and applied a generous amount to his fully hard length. He picked up one of Sam's legs and rested it on his shoulder and then lined himself up. Sam could feel Dean's swollen head pushing at his entrance for a moment, feeling impossibly large, but then Dean pushed forward and the head was inside. Sam gasped; despite the prep, it still hurt and he felt the stretch of his tightened sphincter muscles gripping Dean's head.

Dean growled. "Shit Sam, you're like a vice." He stopped moving and rubbed his hands reassuringly up and down Sam's thighs. "Tell me when to move."

After a moment, Sam felt the muscles in his ass loosen up again. He nodded, Dean pushed in a little more, and they continued this routine a couple more times until Dean was fully seated to the hilt. He waited a few seconds, looking like he was shaking with the effort to not move and Sam realized that he was once again waiting for the go ahead to continue.

It still felt uncomfortable, but Sam nodded his head. "It's okay Dean. Move."

Dean began at a slow pace. "Fuck, you're tight." He closed his eyes and moaned. "Mm, oh God, so tight." He then leaned forward and caught Sam's lips in a passionate kiss.

Dean frequently shifted his gaze from Sam's face down to where his cock was sliding in and out of his ass. Feeling the pleasure/pain of Dean filling him up while watching his face, so turned on, like he was about to come apart, brought Sam back to full hardness in no time flat. Dean began to slowly pick up the pace, moving faster and a little rougher as he brought himself almost all the way out and then drove back into him with each thrust. A thin sheen of sweat began to coat their bodies as they both moved in time to each other, thrusting, kissing, and grabbing each other any place where their hands could find purchase on the other's body. Dean began changing his angle, first to the right and then to the left until he finally hit that spot that he had found earlier and Sam arched his back and gasped.

"There, right there." He moaned as Dean continued to hit the same spot with every thrust. "Oh God!" He panted and grabbed Dean's back, digging his fingers into the flesh. "Oh God, faster, Dean!"

Dean was moaning quietly into Sam's ear. "Fuck Sam, feel like I'm gonna come. Can you come for me, just like this? I know you're close, Sammy, know you're right there."

Sam had felt close for a couple of minutes by then, but he needed something to push him over the edge. "Touch me," he half moaned, half pleaded.

Dean's fingers were still slick with lube and he obediently grabbed Sam's aching hard length, tugging at a furious pace. Sam came almost as soon as Dean put his hand on him, jets of hot come shooting onto his stomach, Dean's stomach, his chest, and even the motel sheets. Dean came almost immediately afterwards with a shout of obscenities mixed with Sam's name and then fell into Sam, both of them flushed red and covered in sweat.

"Fuck Sam," Dean muttered into Sam's chest, "I think I'm dead."

Sam smiled and lay back further into his pillow. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

They lay there for a little while as they recovered from their orgasms and then Dean finally gently slid his softening penis out of Sam, lay down on the bed next to him, and wiped off his stomach with the bed sheet. Sam wanted to clean himself up, but after those two powerful orgasms he didn't have the strength to move. He turned to his side and settled his face in the hollow between Dean's neck and shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

.

The next day they made it to Wellington, Ohio and drove to a nearby motel. The building looked like it might at one time had whitewashed walls but time and neglect had turned them a dirty, greyish-brown. Sam got out of the car as soon as they were parked, grateful for the space to stretch his legs after such a long drive and then walked over the thoroughly cracked asphalt to the trunk to pull out their stuff. They needed to quickly check-in and change into their suits so they could get down to the police station at a decent hour. He'd heard Dean say something about checking in and he responded with a grunt as he threw open the trunk and began grabbing their clothes, some salt, and a few weapons and throwing them into an empty duffel. He slammed the trunk shut and began looking for Dean so he could get his room key. Dean was in the manager's office leaning over the counter and shooting his flirtatious, cocky grin at the petite, brunette clerk behind the desk, who was giggling and flirtatiously jiggling her breasts in his face. Sam hung his head in frustration and jealousy but quickly gathered himself together and began heading for the office, prepared to once again grab Dean by the elbow and force him outside to keep him from picking up some cheap piece of ass. At that moment, however, Dean looked out the window and pointed at him, and said something to the clerk and her face immediately darkened and flushed. She turned, hurriedly grabbed their room keys, and then slapped them down on the counter, which Dean then awkwardly accepted with only a courteous smile. He then he walked out the door and crossed the parking lot to meet him.

"What the hell is that look for? You trying to scare the management?" Dean asked as he handed Sam his key.

"Are you kidding me?"

"What?"

"Do you have to hit on the very first girl we see?"

Dean glanced nervously around the parking lot. "Hey, how about we take his conversation inside?" Before Sam could argue, Dean was walking away from him and heading towards their room. Dean unlocked the door, stepped inside, then held the door for Sam and shut it behind them. "Okay, I was not hitting on her. I was flirting; there's a big difference."

Sam snorted derisively. "How?"

"Well, I wasn't trying to get into her pants for starters!"

Sam looked around the room and then stared at Dean in disbelief. "Why are there two beds?"

Dean eyed him up uneasily. "We always get two beds."

Sam shook his head. "We didn't last night. You didn't want that motel clerk to think you were gay, did you?"

Dean looked down uncomfortably for a moment. "Okay, no, I didn't. But you kind of screwed that to hell. She saw your face and knew it had 'jealous boyfriend' written all over it."

Sam's face twitched into a smirk that he tried to hide. "Is that what she said? You didn't tell her we were brothers?"

"No, I called you my…partner. Which could mean a lot of things. And I think she would have taken that as FBI or something, anything else, but then she saw your face, and I saw how you looked…" He looked Sam in the eye. "You don't need to be jealous."

"Why not?"

"Because I would never do that to you, Sam! I can't help it that I flirt. I don't know, it's like a reflex for me. It's nice to get that kind of attention I guess. But I'll only ever flirt; I'm not going home with anyone else."

"Right; that's comforting," Sam said wryly.

Dean took a few steps so that he was only mere inches away from Sam. He lifted his arm and pushed the hair out of Sam's face. "No, really. Sam, you mean…" He broke off his sentence and frowned. "You're the only person whose pants I want to get into, okay? I meant it when I said I don't want to share. I wouldn't do that to you, Sammy." He shook his head. "I just wouldn't."

Sam considered this for a moment. It was true that Dean was a natural-born flirt. Also, he was fairly certain that Dean still felt uncomfortable about people knowing about their relationship and branding him as gay. After all, he had always tried to be just like their dad who had had some unspoken, yet obviously closed-minded opinions on different sexualities. So really, this was just one more thing to throw onto the list of things that Dean was insecure about and/or couldn't accept about himself. But that didn't stop him from still feeling jealous and angry over it.

"Alright, whatever," he grumbled, throwing his duffel onto the bed and pulling out his neatly folded suit.

Dean scowled. "Yeah, fine, whatever."

As Sam and Dean were getting ready to leave, Sam was standing in the bathroom giving himself one last look in the mirror and buttoning his cuffs when he heard a woman's exaggerated moaning coming from the room. He rolled his eyes. Did Dean really have to watch porn when he was right freaking there with him? When he entered the room, he saw Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, looking absolutely riveted by the television where a man and a woman, both dressed in hospital clothes, were making out in an elevator with the whole scene set to terrible music. Now he was confused; he would have guessed that maybe it was softcore porn, but the music was definitely off, even for a cheap, bad porno.

"What are you watching?"

Dean shifted a little uneasily on the bed and quickly changed his face to one of nonchalance. "Hospital show. Dr. Sexy MD. It's based on a book."

Sam relaxed a little and scoffed. "When did you hit menopause?" Okay, maybe he shouldn't be making fun of Dean for liking something that was a little less than manly, but it was kind of funny and he was still pissed about that desk clerk.

Dean grimaced. "It's called channel surfing." He swaggered over to the television, taking care to swagger in a way that looked extra manly, and shut off the television. "You ready?"

Sam looked over to him and sneered. "Are you?"

Dean shot him a deadly look and then marched out of the motel room.

.

After speaking with one Mayberry-style incompetent sheriff and their only witness and walking away with their only possibly monster lead being The Incredible Hulk, Sam and Dean realized they'd have to do some digging of their own. Dean stayed in the room looking through police reports while Sam went out and did some legwork. Thanks to a few things he'd learned from Sam, it didn't take much time for Dean to hack into the police computer database and in all of an hour's time he'd finished looking through Bill Randolph's extensive, yet petty, criminal history. Mostly, it looked like the guy was just a jerk; spousal abuse, bar brawls, and court-ordered anger management. It didn't look like this guy's death was much of a loss to society.

After he finished his work, he briefly considered looking at some porn, then decided against it; knowing Sam, he'd even get jealous over finding him whacking off to some random porn chick. Instead, he decided that it might be best if he looked through the news article about the killing to see if he could find any clues that might point them to whatever it really was that had attacked Bill Randolph. He was in the middle of that when Sam returned, touting about seven candy wrappers and a story about seeing an 8-foot wide hole where the front door used to be, and it didn't take much more to figure out what they were dealing with.

"Just deserts. Sweet tooth. Screwing with people before you kill 'em. We're dealing with the trickster, aren't we?"

Sam looked down. "Looks like it."

Dean rose from his chair and faced Sam. "Good. I've wanted to gank that mother since mystery spot."

Sam looked at him thoughtfully. "You sure?"

Dean looked at him, wide-eyed. He really had to ask? "Yeah I'm sure."

"No, I mean, are you sure you want to kill him?"

Again, he really had to ask? Where was he going with this? "Son of a bitch didn't think twice about icing me, a thousand times."

No, I know, I'm just saying –"

Dean was starting to feel agitated. It appeared that Sam was cooking up some plan in that freakishly large head of his and he didn't like it. "What are you saying? You don't wanna kill him, then what?"

Sam hesitated as if he was choosing his words carefully. "Talk to him?"

While Sam went over his clearly insane plan to ally with the trickster and preached about no longer had the "luxury of a moral stand," during the apocalypse, Dean didn't know whether he wanted to hit Sam or hug him. How could Sam not see the similarities between this and what he'd done with Ruby? Come on, using someone's evil powers to stop evil? Teaming up with a violent, bloodthirsty monster? Sam might think that the ends justified the means, but he'd also thought that not too long ago. And look where that got them.

"I'm just saying, it's worth a shot, that's all," Sam said. "If it doesn't work…" he frowned and shook his head. "We'll kill him."

Dean sighed and looked down. Well, at least this time Sam was willing to kill him, which was what they were undoubtedly going to have to do anyway, so Dean didn't see the point in arguing with Sam or bringing up the similarities of this plan to the one he'd made with the demon bitch that brought about the end of the world in the first place. "How are we even going to find the guy?"

"Well he never just takes one victim, right? He'll show."

Dean looked down, still thoroughly hating this plan, and walked away, getting ready to go get the evergreen stakes and a sharp knife out of the trunk of the car. Sometimes he really thought his brother was seriously unhinged.


	18. Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad

Dean sat on one of the beds in the room, determinedly sharpening his evergreen stake to a lethally sharp point. He was going to kill that son of a bitch himself. Sure, he'd let Sam have his little heart-to-heart with him first, but there was no way that dick was going to live past the end of this hunt. Killing him only once actually felt a bit too merciful. That bastard killed him god knows how many times and he wasn't even sure of everything he'd done to Sam. Sam had barely spoken for two weeks after they'd finally gotten themselves out of that crazy time loop at the mystery spot; he just sat there, looking at Dean as if he expected him to disappear into thin air at any second. One night Dean even woke up in the middle of the night to find Sam sitting up in his bed and just staring at him with the same look he'd had when he was cursed by the rabbit's foot and lost his shoe. He'd gotten better after a few weeks, but somewhere in that time when the trickster had had a hold of him, his brother picked up a sad and haunted look that had never left him and, other than listing a few of the ways that Dean had died, he had refused to talk about anything that had happened. He was pretty sure that if he pressed him about it even now, Sam would still refuse to talk about it. Dean gritted his teeth and scraped the knife along the stake extra hard. Fortunately, the chances of the trickster being up for doing anything with them that didn't involve dropping a piano on one of their heads were slim to none and Dean would be able to drive this stake right through the bastard's heart. He just wished he could do it now instead of sitting around with Sam with their junk in their hands, waiting for the next person to die just so Sam could have his little pow-wow with the fucking thing. He should really start considering not just caving in and letting Sam always have whatever he wanted.

The sound of their police radio broke through the inner monologue of his thoughts, calling in a 187. Homicide. Sam turned the radio up a little louder to make sure he could hear. Dean listened to the transmission with growing interest and by the time the freaked out officer asked them to "send everybody" to some old paper mill out on Route 6, Dean was starting to feel hopeful. Maybe he'd get to stab something today, after all.

As they grabbed their coats, Sam turned to Dean and eyed up the newly sharpened stake he was clutching. "You are going to let me talk to him before you just up and stake him, right?"

Dean scowled at his brother. "I've gone along this far with you and your crazy plan, haven't I?"

Sam scoffed and looked away. "Fine."

Dean looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up at his brother. "Sam?" Sam eyed him questioningly. "What the hell happened at that mystery spot? What did he do to you?"

Sam blanched and shook his head. "The world's coming to an end, Dean and it really doesn't matter anymore. Come on." With that, he quickly headed out the door, leaving Dean to follow.

.

Sam should have been tipped off that something was wrong when they'd gotten to the paper mill and the parking lot was completely empty: no cops, no forensics teams, not even a corpse. But he and Dean had barged in, anyway. Of course the trickster had set a trap for them; how could he have ever thought otherwise? At least the trickster had the same menopausal taste in television as Dean. Dean knew everything about this Seattle Mercy Hospital place. He even knew the layout so well Sam was sure he'd even be able to direct him to any of the wards, or even the gift shop. He was also taking it upon himself to tell Sam the name of every doctor they passed, as well as a quick biographical sketch as he stared at each of them in awe. Sam sniggered; no one gets that much from "channel surfing."

"Thought you weren't a fan."

Dean turned and looked uneasily at his brother. "I'm not." At Sam's returning skeptical stare, Dean plastered on his extra cocky smile that he saved for occasions when he was caught doing something wrong. "I'm not!" When Sam's look didn't change, Dean turned his head and looked away, but then something caught his eye and he completely stopped. "Oh boy!"

Sam did not like the sound of that tone. He tensed and began looking around for possible weapons. "What?"

Dean's expression turned to that of an enamored schoolgirl and he began gasping for air. "It's him." He whispered the words quietly and reverently as if he were speaking of a god.

"Who?"

Dean looked about to throw up. "It's him, it's Dr. Sexy!" He turned and averted his eyes as if the man in the lab coat walking towards them was too holy to be gazed upon.

Sam gaped at Dean in shock. Did he just fanboy over someone? No; he still was! The only thing missing was for him to flail his arms and scream! Sam studied the man approaching them with irrational disdain. Come on, what was so special about this guy? He had two day old scruff covering his face and what was up with the stupid, floppy hair that he had all pushed back like that? Sam seethed. The scruff actually made him look rugged and his hair looked a lot like his own. There was really nothing wrong with him, and that only irritated Sam more. He tried to compose himself, but when Dr. Sexy approached, Sam still couldn't help but give him only the briefest of nods followed by a curt stare as he watched Dean bashfully duck head and practically faint over simply being addressed by him.

Dr. Sexy turned to Sam. "Doctor."

Sam gave him an acknowledging head nod and then turned to Dean with a "what the hell?" expression over Dean's ridiculous reactions to this man, but Dean wasn't paying attention. He smiled apologetically at Dr. Sexy, then inclined his head towards Sam and gave him a hard slap on the side, looking as if Sam had just embarrassed him in front of the President.

Sam's jaw dropped in disgust. He turned to Dr. Sexy and scowled. "Doctor."

Dr. Sexy nodded at Sam, ignoring his obvious disdain, then turned to Dean, shot him an intense stare, and began talking to him about some ridiculous medical procedure. Did he seriously just ask Dean about a 'face transplant?' But Dean was grinning dotingly at Dr. Sexy and staring shyly at the floor like a 12-year-old with his first crush. Sam rolled his eyes; he wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He'd never seen Dean react this way towards anyone, man or woman, and it was maddening watching his lover gush over another man like this. When Dean looked back up from the floor, however, his ridiculous admiration was replaced with a suspicious glare and then he unexpectedly threw him against the wall.

"You're not Dr. Sexy," he growled.

Dr. Sexy stared down at Dean confidently. "You're crazy."

Dean appeared undaunted and unimpressed by that same stare that had melted him just a few seconds ago. "Oh really? Because I could have sworn that part of what makes Dr. Sexy sexy is the fact that he wears cowboy boots; not tennis shoes."

Sam felt that same jealousy once again rise up within him. "Yeah, you're not a fan," he scoffed, feeling a little hurt. Maybe he should start wearing cowboy boots.

"It's a guilty pleasure," he growled through gritted teeth.

Dr. Sexy rolled his eyes. "Call security!"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, go ahead pal; see, we know what you are."

Sam looked around nervously at the small crowd beginning to form around them and the approaching security guard. This was going to get ugly. He began strategizing a battle plan when suddenly everyone and everything around them froze. What the hell? But then Dr. Sexy smiled malevolently at then and his face began to undergo a transformation. In only a few seconds time, Sam found himself looking into the face of the trickster.

.

Dean glared angrily at the monster he had pinned up against the wall. Well, great, they found him. So now Sam could have his little pow-wow with this thing and then Dean could stab him in the heart. But after a few minutes of conversation and learning that tricksters apparently had super strength, the trickster was gone and he and Sam were still trapped in this idiot box. Dean huffed at Sam, then turned and began walking down a corridor that he'd picked at random. Well, this was just great. He knew talking to a monster wouldn't work.

"You know that that sweet, soulful, 'please trust me and hear me out' look only works on humans, right?" He snorted scornfully, then rounded a corner and kept walking. "Oh, by the way, talking with monsters? Hell of a plan."

"What are we going to do now?"

Sam was defeated and passive; he really thought that his crazy idea of trying to reason with a monster was going to work. In a way, it was kind of sweet that Sam was still innocent enough to believe that there was some good to be found in evil. But it was also very, very irritating; thinking like that was what got them into this apocalypse mess in the first place. Really, how long was he going to have to remind Sam that there was a reason these things were called "monsters" and the word wasn't just some arbitrary title?

"You know what I'm doing? Leaving!"

Dr. Picallo stormed up to them just then and Sam barely managed to dodge getting slapped in the face. When her hand missed its mark, it went flying and Dean jumped back too just to be sure he didn't accidentally get caught in the crossfire. This really wasn't Sam's day.

Sam tried swatting her off by telling her he wasn't a doctor, but her face only clouded over like she was going to cry and then she began spouting all sorts of shit about him being a terrific cerebral-vascular-neurosurgeon. Hmm, so the trickster had him playing that character on the show, did he? That made him Dr. Picallo's love interest. Well, that certainly explained a lot. If they followed this episode, or whatever this was, to the end, it would probably end with the two of them banging each other in a hospital bed, elevator, or supply closet. A scene flashed through his mind, but with Sam supplanting the male actor, of the two of them crammed together in a supply closet and hastily taking off each other's clothes as they kissed and rutted frantically against each other. He frowned. But Sam was completely ignoring the attractive woman in front of him and instead staring at him with a look that suggested that suicide might be a preferable alternative to being stuck in this show. Dean returned the look, shrugged his shoulders, and smirked. Sorry lady, fake show or real life, Sam was only his.

"…You're afraid to operate," she cried, her voice cracking, "and you're afraid to love!" and with that, she stormed past the two of them and down the hall away from them.

Dean rolled his eyes. Okay, that was too much, even for him. Dean gestured to Sam in a way that asked him if he needed any more convincing to leave.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, "we're getting outta here."

As they began walking down the hallway, however, he heard a man's voice say, "hey, doctor." He could have been talking to either of them, but somehow Dean knew that the guy was only talking to him because they knew each other and there was some sort of important business to be attended to between them. Great; the trickster also had the power to put thoughts into his head that were acting as performance cues. Dean closed his eyes, feeling supremely frustrated at this new discovery.

He turned to the man and the word Biel suddenly appeared in his mind without any known reason or explanation. "Yes," he asked in an irritated tone.

The man looked sadly at him. "My wife needs that face transplant."

He heard an unknown, slightly nasally voice in his head say, _I know, and I promise you that your wife will get everything she needs, with or without Dr. Sexy's consent._ Oh, fuck no; the clown show was over and he wasn't playing along with the trickster's stupid game.

.

By the time Dean found himself standing in front of a refrigerator holding a container of mustard and another of Cheez Whiz, he really wanted to stab something. He'd even settle for ripping apart the sandwich in front of him. He'd already had Dr. Sexy M.D. ruined for him for life, been shot, nearly had his nuts crushed on a crazy Japanese game show, and been in a herpes commercial (although it was pretty funny to watch Sam have to look at the camera and say that he had herpes with a straight face.) The same irritating voice that had been playing in his head since he and Sam had first gotten stuck in this horrible trap was now giving him stage directions. The voice promised him that if he followed his directions like a good boy, he'd get to see Sam again. As he closed the fridge, Dean mentally shot back to the intruding voice, _if you can hear me, when I find you, you son of a bitch, I'm going to carve you up with an evergreen stake, nice and slow._ Then he slapped on the stupid smile he was directed to wear and said his lines.

An unseen audience clapped and laughed in response and he inwardly frowned. That was going to get old real quick. Right on cue, Sam walked through the door and shot Dean a suffering look, which prompted a whole new wave of clapping and cheering. As directed, Dean returned his look with a happy grin. "Hey there, Sam, what's happening?"

"Oh nothing," Sam looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he could pull off his mental stage directions. He put his hands on his hips. "Just the end of the world!" They went back and forth like this for a little while, that same nasally voice giving them instruction the whole time. Goddamned voice. If it belonged to a real person, Dean was going to hunt him down and kill him, too. Sam asked him if he'd done his research and the voice told him he hadn't and his reaction, along with the lines he was given, should convey the fact that he was lying very poorly. "Oh yeah! All kind of research, all night."

Sam smiled. "Yeah? Hmm."

A door clicked behind him and only then was Dean informed that there was a pretty girl about to walk out of the bathroom and he should act like they'd just banged. A second later, he heard a seductive, "oh, Dean!" He looked up at Sam and saw his brother wearing an expression too surprised to be scripted. He guessed he hadn't been told about the chick in the bathroom. After a brief moment, he tried to slip into his usual bitchface, probably from the mental instructions, but it was too prissy to be real.

Dean turned to look at the chick, half out of stage direction and half out of mere curiosity, and, upon seeing her, instantly understood Sam's initial incredulity. She looked no older than sixteen. What the Hell? Did the trickster really think he was that skeevy? She was in a bikini and high heels. Huh. In the trickster's world, he apparently had some sort of kinky bikini/high heel fetish.

The girl shot him a sexy smile. "We have some more…research to do!"

Dean smiled at her as if that idea was actually appealing to him. He mused about how interesting it was to see their lives from this angle. Was this really how he was seen, picking up chicks and bringing them home to a jealous brother who later got kicked out of the room so he could bang them? Sam was acting from instruction and wasn't actually hurt, but they'd really been in this situation before and back then these same reactions were very real. It was amazing that he'd never seen all that hurt and jealousy for what it was all this time.

They kept up with the directions and lines they were given and, as Sam kicked Jailbait out of their room, Dean smiled uncomfortably and turned his head towards the audience, making sure to shoot a little cocky bravado their way. He didn't know what the trickster had planned for them if either of them broke character now and he'd really like to avoid being shot again. But he knew two things for sure: one, that he and Sam were going to get the trickster to bring Cas from wherever he'd stashed him; and two, they were going to find a way to kill this thing.

.

As the trickster lay on the dirty floor of the shabby, abandoned, old factory with a bloodied evergreen stake through his heart, Sam and Dean stood together, still panting from their adrenaline high. Sam examined himself. He was finally wearing his own clothes. And they were finally standing inside a factory, just like the one they'd walked into. He breathed a sigh of relief; they were back in the real world. Beside him, Dean was slowly backing away from the body, as if he expected it to jump out and shout "surprise!".

"Come on, Sam; let's get the hell outta here."

As they drove back to the motel, Sam sank into deep, contemplative thought. Why had the trickster wanted them to say yes to Michael and Lucifer? It didn't seem like his style to work for anyone or anything other than his own immediate gratification. What could have possibly been the trickster's advantage in making them say 'yes?' Did it just think it was a good idea? He imagined Dean walking towards him with an angel-killing knife in his hand, his face twisting into expressions that Dean had never made before because the thing walking towards him was no longer his brother. He then thought of himself, trapped inside his own body, clutching a knife identical to Deans and advancing towards his brother with the sole purpose of killing him. No; that was never going to happen.

So, they were back where they started; neither of them was saying 'yes' to Michael and Lucifer and they had no super powerful being to help them stop the apocalypse. Well whatever, at least Sam would never have to worry about being tortured by that thing anymore. No more being attacked by psycho chainsaw killers or trapped in TV shows. Or time loops. How long was he in Broward County? Six months? A year? More? He wasn't sure; he'd pretty much stopped counting after the hundredth Tuesday. But even the endless loop of Tuesdays were better than the six months he'd spent afterwards, waking up every morning to find Dean was still dead and that it was his fault because he couldn't find a way to save him. And all of that was better than the four months he'd spent alone when Dean was in Hell.

"Sam?" Dean's worried voice brought Sam out of his reverie. Sam blinked and shook his head. They were already parked in front of their motel with the engine turned off. "You okay?"

Sam looked over to his left at Dean and only the words, _here_ and _mine_ registered in Sam's mind as he quickly moved over and caught Dean's lips in a needy kiss. He grabbed the sides of Dean's face with both hands and pushed his head back against the seat. Dean jumped a little in surprise but kissed him back and it wasn't until Sam felt a moan rise in his throat and escape into Dean's mouth that Dean finally pushed him away.

"Christ Sam, I don't know how you used to go so long without sex before this; you're like a freaking addict! How about we do this inside?" Without another word, Dean got out of the car and headed towards their room and Sam followed. Sam closed the door to their room and then turned to see Dean heading to the bathroom. "I feel a little grimy from being in that damned network cable box for a few days; let me just brush my teeth real quick, okay?"

Sam nodded and watched Dean disappear into the bathroom. Maybe Dean was right and he did have a high sex drive, but wanting to be with him this time had very little to do with just physical pleasure. Only he could never tell him that. Dean could be spared the details of the mystery spot; they had enough to deal with at the moment. Sam moved his hand to the button of his pants, ready to undress for their coming round of sex, when without warning the world tilted to the right, he felt his body simultaneously stretch and compress, and suddenly he was outside.

.

Dean spit a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. "I'm worried, man," he said, "what that S.O.B did to Cas. You know; where is he?" He stepped into the room only to, surprisingly, find it empty. "Sam?" There was no response. Did he leave? It seemed unlikely since, just a minute ago he'd been practically eaten his face in the Impala. He looked around their small room. "Where are you?"

It didn't take long to see that Sam was definitely not there. Why would he leave? Did they forget their lube back at the other motel? He was pretty sure he'd packed it. And, even though they'd decided not to use them, Dean still had plenty of condoms, too. He quickly walked to the front window and lifted back the curtain. The Impala was still outside, so he didn't drive anywhere. What the hell? Dean walked out of the motel and grabbed his cell phone from his pocket. He thought maybe Sam had just gone out for a walk, but Sam's phone went straight to voicemail.

Starting to get a little worried now, Dean began walking towards the car. "Sam. It's me. The hell did you go?"

He climbed into the car and shut the door and then his phone, wondering where he should start looking, when Sam's voice suddenly and mysteriously filled the car. "Dean?"

Dean checked the backseat, then looked around and opened his eyes in alarm. No 6'4" Sasquatch anywhere in sight. "Sam? Where are you?"

"I don't know." Dean's head jerked back, surprised. Sam's voice was coming from the dash! Why the fuck was Sam's voice coming from the dash? Lights that had never before been on the Impala lit up as he heard Sam's voice one again break the silence. "Oh crap. I don't think we killed the trickster."

What the hell? The trickster had…sonovabitch! Dean blinked, feeling angry and highly disturbed. He needed to use the car…er, Sam…to go out and find the trickster. "I, uh, I'm going to turn you on now…" He cringed. "Wow, now I feel a little dirty."

Sam sighed. "Go ahead, Dean."

Dean grabbed his keys, feeling uneasy for the first time ever about jamming them into the ignition. "I, uh, should I do this gently?"

"Christsakes, just do it, Dean!"

He slid the keys in the ignition and started up the car. "Well, aren't you a little grumpy."

"Yeah," Sam's voice was thick with sarcasm, "I am a little grumpy. Because I'm a fucking car, Dean!"

Dean rolled his eyes. "You think I'm happy about this? Let's just focus on finding that son of a bitch." He put the car into drive and pulled out of the motel and onto the highway.

.

A little while later as Dean fished around inside the trunk of…well, Sam, he felt thankful that the trickster hadn't changed anything about the supplies they had kept in the Impala. As he rearranged the weapons back where they belonged after grabbing the holy oil from all the way in the back, he heard Sam's voice once again punctuate the air, his tone a little deeper than usual. "Dean?"

"What?"

"That…uh, that feels really…uncomfortable."

Dean rolled his eyes. And the trickster's jokes just kept on coming. Son of a bitch must have seen what they were about to do in the motel and now he had Dean moving his whole hand around inside Sam's ass; that must hurt. Dean let out a little growl, now supremely fed up with this thing's stupid antics, pulled his hand out of Sam's trunk, and slammed it shut.

"Ow!"

Dean grimaced the moved around to the front of the car. If this thing really was an angel like they suspected, then once they got it trapped in the ring of holy fire, he wanted to deep-fry this son of a bitch, extra crispy.

.

A few minutes later, Dean and Cas (who had finally been brought back from wherever the trickster/archangel Gabriel had sent him,) were walking out of the warehouse. Gabriel glared at them, wet from the sprinklers that quenched the flame of the holy oil that had been trapping him. Sam lingered. Why hadn't Gabriel come out and told him about his and Dean's role in the apocalypse before when they were at the mystery spot? It wasn't like Sam hadn't stayed long enough to chat. He understood the angel's need to stay undercover, but this seemed like a really important thing to just omit. I mean, instead of just saying, "Dean's your weakness, and the bad guys know it too," couldn't he have said something like, _'by the way, when I say that, I mean not to trust that demon bitch who says she can save your brother because she's really just trying to start up the apocalypse so I have to watch two of my brothers murder each other while they walk around wearing your skins?'_ Would that have been too much to ask? He'd known all along. He could have stopped all of this. Sam stared angrily at the angel for a few more seconds before he too began to slowly back up and follow Dean towards the door.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel climbed into the Impala. Well, Sam and Dean climbed in and Castiel appeared to just kind materialize in the backseat. Dean stared blankly at the dash, meaning that he was scared as hell, and Sam felt the need to comfort him.

"Dean, you know we don't have to become that, right?"

Dean looked stoically at him. "You sure about that?"

From the backseat, Castiel suddenly piped up. "There is no destiny. Not really, even if many of the other angels will tell you differently."

Dean looked back to Castiel. "Do they believe it?"

"Some do. But you and Sam have gone off book before. Much of that also has to do with the nature of your connection. There is something you both need to understand. Your connection, your…love for one another, literally has the power to destroy the world. But it also has the power to save it. You have both already seen how so many have used co-dependence, fear, pride, and even good intentions you might have towards each other against you. But they underestimate the strength of your bond, partially because it transcends all understanding, logic, and reason. This makes it very unpredictable and unruly, even to Chuck's visions or the powers of divine providence. Dean, I'd like you to think back to the monastery. You know that you didn't just go there to stop Lucifer; you went to save your brother because you couldn't let Sam die thinking that you hated him and that you'd given up on him. If we had gotten there in time, it would have been that loyalty, that level of devotion you have for one another that would have ultimately stopped the apocalypse."

"No, I'm actually pretty sure that it was you flying my ass away from Zechariah that did it," Dean wise-cracked.

Sam rolled his eyes. Leave it to Dean to say something stupid when things got too serious. "You did that?"

"Well…" Dean looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. "That, and stopping Lucifer. Lucifer was the main thing. And I also really wanted to ice Ruby. I mean –"

Sam stopped him mid-sentence by grabbing Dean by the front of his shirt and pulling him in for a crushing kiss. He pulled away after a few seconds and looked into his eyes. "I love you, Dean."

Dean looked away, embarrassed. "Yeah. Yeah, you too. You know that, Sammy."

Dean, looking horribly uncomfortable and embarrassed, moved his eyes to the backseat where, oddly enough, Castiel was still sitting and staring at them as if nothing unusual was happening. "Cas, could you –"

Castiel nodded. "You and Sam want to have carnal relations; I understand." And, with that, they heard the flapping of wings and he was gone.

Sam stared incredulously at Dean. "Dude, carnal relations?"

Dean smirked, shook his head and put the car into drive. "Good ol' Cas and his awkward way of saying things. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but, might be a good idea for later on."

Sam smirked. It was definitely a good idea for later on, especially since they were interrupted the last time. But at the moment, Sam's main interest laid in getting as far the hell away from Gabriel as humanly possible. It appeared Dean felt the same because within half an hours' time, the two of them got back their motel, packed up their few belongings, and hit the road. They had been driving for only a couple of hours though when they pulled off the side of the road on a deserted highway, neither of them being able to keep their hands off of the other. They climbed into the backseat and Sam let Dean lay on top on him as they kissed, moaned, and pawed at each other through clothes. Dean pulled his lips off of Sam's, threw off his unbuttoned shirt, and then pulled his t-shirt over his head. Sam began to unbutton his own shirt, but Dean smacked his hands away, feverishly undoing Sam's shirt buttons as if he couldn't get him undressed fast enough.

"So fucking…been wanting this, it's been days…"

He finished with Sam's shirt and Sam lifted himself up so Dean could take it off of him and throw it to the floor of the car. Sam then wrapped his arms around Dean and pulled him down so he could feel Dean's hot skin pressed against his own. "Me too, Dean." He grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in for another kiss, then gripped Dean's ass with both hands and pushed their pelvises together and felt that Dean was already hard.

It was right at that moment that Sam's phone went off, letting him know that he had a text message. Dean broke the kiss for long enough to growl, "Don't you dare answer it," then leaned in and nibbled Sam's lip before starting up another kiss.

Yeah, no way was Sam going to answer a text; whoever it was could wait. But then his phone went off a second, and then a third time. Sam sighed and lay back on the seat, then fished through his pocket for the phone. When he flipped it open, he stared at it in surprise.

"It's Chuck."

Dean looked at him confusedly. "Since when did Chuck learn how to text?"

Sam hit a button to see the message and his eyes widened in concern. "I don't know, but whatever it is looks pretty important. Says he needs us and it's a life or death situation."

Dean cocked his eyebrow and quickly got off of Sam. "Does he have an address?"

Sam pressed a button to look at the second message and then nodded his head. "Yeah, but it's kind of far."

Dean growled in frustration. "Well, guess we'd better haul ass then."


	19. When the Walls Came Tumbling Down

As he tugged at the collar of his t-shirt and shifted the car into drive, Dean silently fumed over his sexual frustration. Fucking Chuck. The guy had terrific timing. Would it have been such a crime to give them another half-hour or so? Hell, fifteen minutes would have even been fine, just to give him enough time to at least suck Sam off or something. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam shift uncomfortably in his seat and press his hand to the crotch of his jeans. Well, Dean was driving so there was no way Sam could help him out (he had a very strict rule against doing anything that could end in crashing his baby,) but there was one thing Dean could at least do for Sam's blue balls. Still keeping his eyes on the road, Dean reached over and began to one-handedly fumble with the button on Sam's jeans.

Sam looked down at his lap and then shifted his hips forward and spread his legs a little. "What're you doing, Dean?"

Dean grinned. He had quickly learned that, even in bed, Sam liked to talk. Dean himself wasn't usually much of a talker, but he had to admit that he was starting to kinda like it; after all, watching Sam get off on hearing him talk a little dirty to him was pretty hot.

"I think you already know, Sammy. I'm going to take care of you." He finally worked the button open and then made quick work of the zipper. "I like to watch as I get you off." Sam watched Dean reach inside his boxers and pull out his hard and already leaking cock, then he rested his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. "I like to hear you moan and pant for me," he swiped his thumb over the head, smearing Sam's pre-cum and then began working his thumb in a circular motion, "watch your body spasm as you get close," he moved his thumb away from the head and began moving his hand slowly up and down the shaft, "see your face right at the moment you come for me."

Sam moaned and thrust his hips up into Dean's hand and this really wasn't helping Dean with his feelings of sexual frustration but it wasn't bad enough that he couldn't keep his focus on the road. "Just make sure we don't crash," Sam said, as if reading his thoughts. Dean smirked, then squeezed a little harder and began picking up the pace to ensure that, for a little while, Sam wouldn't be able to say anything except silent pleas and one-word exclamations.

After the third hour of driving, they stopped at a gas station and while there Sam changed out of his come-stained shirt. Dean, who had absentmindly wiped his hand off on his shirt after Sam had shot his load, also changed, but they still didn't allow themselves more than ten minutes at the station before they got back on the road. They talked a little and Dean played his music to keep himself awake. They'd lost all track of time when Gabriel had them stuck in that…whatever the hell it was, but his body told him that it'd been a long time since he'd slept. He could tell from Sam's bloodshot eyes that he was probably even more exhausted than he, and after the seventh hour of being on the road, Sam's fatigue began to really show as his chosen topics of conversation began getting strangely random and unrelated to one another.

After briefly trying to talk about a fight they'd had in a motel swimming pool when Sam was six and Dean was ten, Sam unexpectedly asked in a very sleepy voice, "Why don't you wear your leather jacket anymore?"

After overcoming the initial surprise of being asked such a random question, Dean frowned. Why didn't he wear the jacket anymore? Because two years ago, after chasing that Jeremy kid down inside his own head and talking to a dream version of himself, he'd finally realized that he'd spent his entire life chasing after the unattainable approval of an impossible, absent, and now dead, father who had unfairly put the world on his shoulders but had never given him a single word of approval or encouragement. Because he realized that if he was ever going to like himself it meant he had to find his own identity and become his own person. And there was no way in hell that he was telling Sam any of that. Dean looked over to him and cocked an eyebrow. "You know, why don't you grab a little shut-eye? You don't have to keep talking to try and keep me up. I'm fine."

"Me too."

"How long's it been since you last slept?"

"Dude, I could ask you the same thing."

Dean shrugged. "Whatever. It's just a random thing to ask. Why do you care what I wear?"

Sam closed his eyes and rested his head against the window of the Impala. "Smells like you." He snuffled sleepily. "Was just thinking about when we were kids and Dad would drive all night and we'd fall asleep in the backseat together. Or when you sat in the front and gave me the jacket to use as a pillow when I got sleepy. Always woke up to the smell of leather. Miss it. It's nice; kinda like home."

Dean furrowed his brow in discomfort over the Sam-induced chick-flick moment, but at the same time couldn't help but smile to himself at memories triggered by his brother's sleepy snuffling. He remembered how, back when they were too young to even know what sex was, Sam used to curl up next to him in the backseat of the car or in some small-ass motel bed and Dean would hold him while Sam snuffled in his ear and they fell asleep together. Yeah, okay, so maybe Dean was just as much of a sentimental sap as Sam, but no one saw him getting all mushy over it.

He cleared his throat. "You can be a really sappy girl when you wanna be."

Sam smiled in his half-sleeping state. "Jerk."

"Bitch."

Dean felt a small amount of tension work out of his body at the quick but familiar interchange. He didn't care if it was weird that calling Sam a bitch was how he preferred to show affection. He hated the whole soulfully staring into each other's eyes and spouting sonnets shit that Sam sometimes pulled. Fuck, sometimes it just got embarrassing, like earlier that day…or, now it was yesterday, he guessed, when they were sitting in the Impala and Sam decided to just drop the l-word with Cas sitting in the backseat. Dean had a hundred ways of telling Sam that he loved him and Sam could hear them all if he just decided to open his ears and listen.

"What'ya thnk's gong nwit Chuck?" Sam's voice was becoming so slurred from sleep that Dean could barely understand him.

"Don't know. Maybe another prophesy?"

"Lt's hope nt."

"Yeah, I hear ya. I'm hoping Chuck's life is only in immediate danger."

"Mm-hmm."

Sam made a couple more snuffly grunts and then fell asleep with the side of his forehead resting against the window, his breath making small fog pattern on the glass. Dean grabbed him by the shirtfront and gently moved him to the left until his head was resting against the seat so he wouldn't wake up with a crick in his neck. Sam frowned and scrunched his nose up a little as he slept. The next time Dean stopped for fuel, he pulled the leather jacket out of the trunk and put it on; for the next 200 miles, if Sam woke up, he'd smell leather.

By the next morning when they'd reached the Pineview Hotel, Dean was so tired that he'd gone past the point of being able to feel the exhaustion, but he'd also stubbornly refused to relinquish control behind the wheel. So then it was that a highly caffeinated, strung-out Dean hurriedly skidded into the hotel parking lot and pulled into an empty space as close to the front door as he could find amidst the sea of other black 1967 Impalas. Dean made a mental note to find out if there was some sort of classic car show going on in the area after he and Sam ganked whatever it was attacking Chuck.

Chuck had been pacing in front of the hotel looking like a man about to be executed but, contrary to Dean's expectations, he did not look very happy to see them. In fact, if anything he looked even more scared than before. And by the time Chuck asked, "what're you doing here?" it seemed he had plenty of reason to be scared. Dean's fingers began to twitch for his gun. He'd better have a damn good reason for his sudden amnesia. They'd driven all night! Dean was now pissed, overly caffeinated, twitchy, and so under-sexed that the vibration from the car engine had been giving him hard-ons all night.

"I didn't send you a text."

"We drove all night!"

"I'm sorry," Chuck groveled. "I'm sorry, I don't know what possibly could ha–" he stopped mid-sentence and rolled his eyes. "Oh no."

"What?"

He and Sam stared expectantly at Chuck, waiting for an answer, when the squealing voice of an over-excited woman suddenly pierced the air: "Sam!"

They looked over and were shocked to see Sam's psychotic superfan standing on the porch outside the motel wide-eyed and jumping excitedly. Yeah, Dean remembered her; she was the one who'd swooned over Sam and told Dean he 'wasn't what she expected.' Now, if that didn't prove that she was absolutely nuts, Dean wasn't sure what would.

"You made it!" She ran over to Sam, practically falling over herself from excitement.

Sam looked terrified. Ghosts, demons, and vampires he could handle, but throw one crazy fangirl at him and was about to faint. Not that Dean could blame him; he'd be scared of this bitch, too. She stopped in front of Sam and stared at him as if she was meeting her favorite celebrity. Actually, never mind; she probably was.

Sam controlled the look of fear and eyed her up warily. "Oh, uh," he gave her an acknowledging head nod. "Becky, right?"

"Oh! You remembered."

Dean rolled his eyes in disgust. He really wanted to believe that he was merely pissed that they'd driven all night just so Sam could be swooned over by some crazy nutjob, but there was something else there too, something about the way she looked at Sam as if he was a delicious steak dinner, that just made Dean feel wholly angry and uncomfortable. But he wasn't jealous; no, that'd be ridiculous. Still, watching this chick very unsubtly undress Sam with her eyes was just giving him an irrational surge of anger. And then her voice easily dropped an octave and she said, "You've been thinking about me," in a way that Dean just knew her panties were already wet with desire from just thinking about Sam remembering her goddamned name and Dean had to use all of his self-control to not shake her and scream at her to snap out of it.

Sam looked over at him with an expression that just pleaded for help, but Dean just stared angrily at him. _Fuck you Sam_ , he thought, _you're on your own_. Sam's furrowed his brows in confusion and turned back to Becky. "I, ah…"

Becky giggled. "It's okay; I can't get you out of my head, either."

Thirty seconds of conversation later, Dean discovered the real reason he and Sam were out there: Chuck sucked at keeping both his dick and his phone in his pants whenever Becky was around. Sleeping with Chuck to steal his phone and get Sam to come around; well, it was a novel plan, at least. Although, apparently she'd also called because there was something inside he and Sam needed to see and, whatever it was, it had Becky about to pee herself like an overexcited Labrador. Chuck still looked completely terrified. A fat middle-aged man wearing a yellow shirt and black pants that made him look a little like a bumble bee, showed up at the top of the stairs and announced that it was "Showtime." Showtime? For what? Something felt vaguely ominous about this and he was pretty sure it wasn't just because he was over-caffeinated and his nerves were shot to hell.

"Guys, I'm sorry…" Chuck moved his eyes from a very bewildered Dean to a very concerned Sam and then gestured vaguely towards the world, "…for everything." He quickly turned and ran up the stairs, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders in what looked suspiciously like shame.

Their mouths both dropped open and they stared at each other. Dean gave Sam a look that asked if he should grab more weapons from the trunk. Sam returning look told him that he was pretty sure there was no need, although they were probably going to have to raid a liquor store after they got themselves out of whatever it was they were about to walk into. Dean stepped in front of Sam, taking the lead; whether or not they were going to need extra weapons, he felt the urge to protect him from whatever lay inside that building and was determined to enter first. Becky smiled at him and then dotingly fell in line behind Sam.

.

Holy hell, was Sam ever right! Becky kept bouncing along at Sam's side as she talked about how awesome this must be for them and Dean was actually a little impressed by how much she just didn't get it. This was a nightmare! No, actually, it was worse; people can at least wake from nightmares. But this…this was their whole lives put on exhibition for entertainment! What the hell kind people would find their lives entertaining? They had been at the Supernatural convention for only a little over five minutes ("the first one ever!" Becky kept shouting, and it only gave Dean a small amount of solace that this was the first time he and Sam were being raped by this kind of marketing,) and already he'd seen copies of his amulet for sale, all sorts of shit with pictures of his car on them, a litany of people dressed up as every nightmarish thing they've ever hunted, and a guy in yellow contacts who had tried selling them a t-shirt that said, "Got Salt?" He walked past a guy dressed up as Ash who was making out pretty hardcore with some chick disguised as Bobby and he felt himself throw up in his mouth a little.

"Dude, what the hell?"

Sam, who was practically clinging to him, mumbled, "I don't know, but…I think it's going to be a while before I can look at Bobby again."

Dean nodded in complete understanding, but Becky, who was still practically dance-stepping beside Sam, called out to the strange couple. "Hey, you two, get a room!" She rolled her eyes. "So not my favorite pairing."

Dean stared at her. "Pairing?"

Becky looked up at him excitedly. "Oh, yeah, its –"

Dean closed his eyes and held up his hand. "You know what, I don't wanna know."

Becky blushed, but at that moment the room was filled with the harsh, unpleasant sound of static, shortly followed by a booming voice. It was that dude dressed like a bumble bee. He was standing in the doorway of a room on their right and holding a clipboard and a microphone. "Everyone! The presentation is about to start. If everyone could please form an orderly line and file into the conference room, we can start in five minutes."

Completely forgetting her embarrassment, Becky bounced up and down excitedly. "Come on, you gotta come see!" She grabbed Sam by the hand and yanked. Sam gave Dean only one brief, long-suffering look before he sighed heavily and allowed himself to be dragged along and Dean followed.

.

As Dean walked out of the conference room, he felt like he'd just been raped. Homo-erotic subtext? How could that be? Chuck hadn't published any books for almost two years. Was it obvious to everyone even back then? Did everyone think he was a…The almost forgotten words of self-hatred and self-deprecation suddenly shouted at him from every space inside his head. _Everyone knows you're a faggot. Your little secret's out; everyone knows you're not a real man, you fucking fairy. Doesn't matter how much pussy you've scored; you'll always be a pillow-biter._ Worse, when Chuck starts publishing again, it won't even be subtext; all the intimate details of his and Sam's sex life together will be right there, on paper, put out for the entire world to see.

He felt a warm, reassuring hand firmly squeeze his shoulder. He unconsciously flinched away from Sam's touch and Sam quickly dropped his arm to his side and took a step back. Dean closed his eyes and ran a hand down his face, silently berating himself for not being able to control his response.

He heard Sam say, "Becky, could you excuse us for a second?" and then, "Are you okay?"

"No Sam, I'm really not! Son of a bitch is going to start publishing again."

Sam sighed. "I know. He can't. We have to stop him." His eyes scanned the room for a moment and then he grabbed Dean by the elbow and started walking. "Come on."

Dean, however, did not allow himself to be tugged along. "I can't – I need a minute. I'll be right back."

He tugged his arm out of Sam's grasp and left his worried looking brother behind as he made his way through the crowd of people dressed as them, their friends, and their nightmares, all of whom seemed to be having a great time at his expense. He had to get out of this place, it was getting hard to breathe, the room was too hot, the world was spinning… A closed door with the words "Coat Room" appeared to his right and, after a quick look around to make sure no one was watching him, he quickly ducked inside and closed the door behind him.

The room was thankfully dark, quiet, and completely empty, save for about five or six rows of coats on hangers in the center of the room. He found an inviting place in the corner furthest from the door and slid to the ground, face in his hands. He wasn't going to start up this shit again. He was bi; so what? Did that really make him less of a man? He didn't think any less of Sam for what they were doing, so what was up with the double standard? Besides, he was happy with Sam and, more importantly, he was making Sam happy. And, even if somehow being with Sam could make him less of a man, he'd still do anything to keep making Sam happy. But his plan had always been to quietly belong to Sam and privately carry on their relationship behind closed. But Chuck wanted to put every one of their intimate, private moments up for sale. And apparently, no one was even going to be shocked when they read about their sex life together because it'd been there all along, hidden away in context. Their years of pain, shame, and denial were there, strewn raw across the page, ready for anyone to read about their secret and deeply buried feelings. And now they were giving fucking seminars on it.

On the other side of the room, the door swung open. Dean looked up expecting to see Sam's hulking frame in the doorway but instead he saw a short, Latin guy dressed like him and a slightly taller, pasty-pale man with gauged earrings dressed like Sam enter the room, seemingly completely unaware of his presence. They stayed near the door quietly talking to one another, but their voices were still loud enough that Dean could hear every word of the conversation.

The dude dressed up like him fixed a look that was way too intense to be real on the guy dressed as Sam. "Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"

His sidekick returned the look, proving himself to be just as poor of an actor as his buddy, and dramatically spat, "No. And she's not ever going to know."

"Well that's healthy." The Sam look-alike scoffed and turned away, facing away from the fake Dean and towards the wall.

In the meantime, Dean sat transfixed from his little corner, feeling just a little too shocked and horrified to move. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. He remembered this conversation with Sam and he knew what was coming next. This was the night he'd taken Sam away from Jess, leaving her open to attack. This was the night he'd ruined Sam's life.

"You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're gonna have to face up to who you are."

The Sam-double turned to face him again, obviously trying to wear Sam's bitch face and failing miserably. "And who's that?"

The Dean double shot fake Sam a smile so cocky and obnoxious that Dean kinda wanted to punch him. He really hoped he hadn't actually looked like that. "You're one of us."

Dean flinched. He had never believed that, not even back then; all he'd wanted was for Sam to accept him, his own brother, as a part of his life that he couldn't just walk away from and pretend had never existed. And so he told him something that he never would have guessed was actually true; that he could never have what he wanted because there was no escaping this life. He still wondered if Sam still secretly wanted that apple-pie life that came with 2.5 kids, a dog, and a house with a garage. Dean had to admit, it really wasn't such a bad dream to have; settling down had its advantages and lately he hadn't been particularly adverse to the idea. And if they pulled through this, if they actually survived the friggin' apocalypse, well, then they deserved a damned break. He couldn't give Sam the kids, but if Sam said the word, he'd give him all the rest of it; the house, the dog, the nine-to-five job. Honestly, he'd give Sam anything if he asked. It had always been that way.

"No, I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life." God, he wasn't sure what was getting him more; the horrible memories or the monstrous acting.

"Well, you have a responsibility."

Dean really wanted to travel back in time four years and punch himself in the mouth. But punching this guy would do. He balled his hands into fists, but he just sat there, watching the horrible drama of his and Sam's life unfold in the form of these two dorks who had spent way too much time memorizing Chuck's books.

Faux Sam got in Fake Dean's face. "To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."

At that moment, the Dean wanna-be slammed his friend into the wall and stared into his eyes, their faces only inches apart. "Don't talk about her like that."

Okay, that was about all that he could take. He was about to get up and give both these guys a good punch in the face for torturing him when fake Dean did something unexpected; he closed the four or five inch gap between their faces and kissed fake Sam hard on the mouth. His friend, in turn, wrapped his arms around his waist and kissed him back furiously. Um, that was never his plan of action when he was on the bridge with his brother that night. Yeah, no, he was pretty sure that kissing him like that had never even crossed his mind during that discussion. It hadn't, right? No, he was pretty sure that he'd just wanted to sock him in the jaw. True, he'd spent the entire weekend insanely jealous of Sam's life and of Jessica, but that was because he had wanted his little brother back to fill up that horrible emptiness he felt whenever Sam was away. Any incestuous feelings he'd had at the time were fuzzy, unformed, and too confusing to bring attention to. But these guys knew about what he didn't even know back then…or did they?

Fake Sam pushed him away and tried to conceal a smile behind a very fake mopey face. "No, Dean. I told you when I left; it's over between us. This has to stop."

"Come on, you didn't really mean that." He rubbed his hand down faux Sam's chest and smiled at him in a way that made Dean feel rather uncomfortable as an observer. "You know you want this. Remember back to that first time you let me pound your tight, little ass when you were fourteen?"

At the mention of that, fake Sam moaned and went in for another heated kiss. _Fourteen_? Dean thought about Sam as he looked at that age: a short, shrimpy, nerdy, little virgin with a baby face who, even standing at his full height was still all of 5'6", but, even given his short stature, he always still hunched his shoulders, as if he wished he could just disappear. His pants sometimes looked awkwardly too short for his legs because he had just started his series of growth spurts, which later left him gangly and awkwardly skinny. That was his little Sammy, the baby brother who he needed to protect from bullies and whose backpack he would often insist on carrying because, with all the classes Sam took, it weighed almost as much as he did. Which, at the time, honestly, wasn't much. Even if he had wanted to fuck him back then, (and there was no way in hell was he going to try to find out if his feelings went back that far,) he would never… It would have been the epitome of taking advantage. If sometimes even now, with Sam fully grown at twenty-six, he still wondered if he fully understood what he wanted, then it was about a million times worse when he was fourteen.

Fake Dean broke the heated kiss and gave faux Sam that too intense stare again. "You never told Jessica about us? She doesn't know the things you've done? What we've done?" Okay, that was definitely not what he'd meant.

Faux Sam was panting heavily. "No, and like I said, she's never going to. This is just between you and me, big brother."

Dean cringed. He wasn't sure what he'd do if Sam ever shouted out 'brother' in the heat of the moment, but he was reasonably sure he wouldn't be staring at him with that hungry look fake Dean was giving his friend at the moment. It's not that he had a problem with them being brothers, but it also wasn't something he wanted to discuss during sex. After all, it wasn't like he was with Sam because fucking family members was a kink of his or anything. In fact, it had taken them both a while to get past that enough to finally decide that they were going to get together, in spite of the fact that they were brothers.

Fake Sam stuck his hand down his friend's pants then and Dean at last felt it necessary to make his presence known. This was one show he definitely wasn't sticking around for. He stood up to his full height, then stepped into the open and cleared his throat and the two quickly parted. The fake Dean, upon seeing him, however, eyed him up and down, then smirked and nodded in his direction. "What's up? You wanna join us?" Fake Sam smacked his friend upside the head. And, yeah, that's how Sam would actually react if he ever tried pulling something like that, too. His Latin look-alike turned towards his friend. "What? This guy's pretty hot. Come on, like a Dean/Sam/Dean sandwich doesn't sound appealing to you?"

Dean thought about fucking this pasty, unattractive guy in the ass while being asked to refer to him as Sam and he thought he might throw up. "No sandwiches. Gotta go." With that, he walked out of the coatroom as fast as his legs could carry him.


	20. The Wincester Gospel

Dean walked back into the crowded room and immediately spotted Sam, whose height always made him conspicuous in just about any group of people. Sam's eyes fell on him and he shot him the bitch face as he approached. "Dude, the hell have you been?"

"Nowhere I wanna talk about. Or think about. Ever again."

Sam creased his brown and eyed him up, but in the end seemed to decide not to push the issue. "Um, well, alright, so this convention must have almost zero funding because they served brown paper bagged lunches for dinner." He reached into his jacket. "I got you something, though." He pulled out a brown paper bag. "You want a sandwich?"

Dean stared at the bag in horror. "No!"

"Um, dude, it's just a sandwich."

"What? Yeah, I know. Maybe later. Put that away; I don't wanna look at it." Sam's jaw dropped, but he put the bag back inside his coat. "Have you been out here this whole time?"

"Yeah. Becky tried dragging me to that homo-erotic subtext seminar but I stayed out here. And still, I've seen some things…I think I'm gonna need to talk to a therapist once we get out of here."

"I hear ya. This whole place just feels like it's bad-touching me. Come on, let's talk to Chuck and then get the hell outta here."

When they walked up to Chuck he was sitting in an armchair across from Becky with two fruity-looking drinks standing up on a small table between them. From the looks of it, Chuck was making some very awkward attempts at hitting on her, but the minute she saw Sam, Becky nearly bounced in her chair in excitement and turned her full attention to him, completely ignoring Chuck.

"Oh, hey Sam!"

Sam nodded at her, suddenly looking thrown off his game. Not that Dean could blame him; his little brother wasn't used to getting much attention from girls in the first place, let alone with this level of crazy obsession attached to it. Hell, Dean got hit on often and even he'd be a little freaked out after he got over the initial feeling of flattery. Still, they had a job right then and if Sam was too tongue-tied to do it, then he would.

He stepped in front of Sam and angrily stared Chuck down. "Excuse us! If you haven't noticed, our plates are kinda full, okay?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw Becky lecherously eye up his brother, which only brought an extra edge to his voice. "Finding the colt, hunting the Devil, we don't have time for this crap!" Sam hunched his shoulders, nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other and partially hid himself behind Dean, which only pissed him off more. _Come on lady_ , he thought, _he doesn't fucking want you! Stop making him feel uncomfortable, you crazy bitch!_

Chuck shook his head. "Hey, I didn't call you –"

"He means the books, Chuck," Sam broke in, "Why are you publishing more books?"

"Um…for food and shelter?"

Dean angrily leaned in and got in Chuck's face. "Who gave you the rights to our life story?"

"An archangel!" he shouted, looking a little desperate. "And I didn't want it!"

Sam leaned in a little as well and rested his hands on the little table sitting to Chuck's right. "Well, deal's off, okay? No more books. Our lives are not for public consumption."

Chuck, although clearly upset, turned to Becky and politely excused them and the three of them walked to a quiet corner of the room, where Dean turned on him. "What the hell, you weren't even going to tell us?"

"Well, as you can tell, it's not going very well."

"You know what, it was bad enough before, but the rest of the world doesn't need to know about our problems or our sex life, okay?"

Chuck looked at Dean as if he'd gone crazy. "I'm not putting you guys' sex life with each other into the books. What, you think I want to be known for that? Some people are on board with it, sure, but my fan base would drop dramatically. I'm trying to make money, not lose it."

"Um…" Sam scrunched up his face in confusion. "Sounds like you've already been doing it. Homo-erotic subtext?"

"I didn't read it like that! But even still, it's just subtext; it can be taken any of several different ways. But now…" he shook his head. "I know what you're thinking, guys. Yes, I still write everything that happens. I have to; the images sear themselves into my brain if I don't. Also, they come back if I try erasing it later. But I don't…" he lowered his voice, "I edit the books, okay? Sometimes it takes a massive amount of editing, but I do it. I take every comment, every look, every…you know, and I write it up in a separate book I'm never planning to send to my publisher."

"So, what? You've got your little books that you're putting in your canon and on the side you're writing the…the… The _Wincest_ er Gospel?"

In spite of himself, Sam couldn't help but chuckle a little at Dean's horrible joke. Wincester. Wincest. It was kind of funny, in a horrible sort of way. He wondered if Dean had just come up with that on his own.

"Guys, what other choice do I have?" Chuck threw his hands in the air. "That's it. I can't do anything else; I'm stuck." He gave them one last pleading look and then walked out of the room with Sam and Dean in hot pursuit. He walked through two rooms before he finally turned heel and faced them again. "You guys know what I do for a living?"

From behind him, he heard Sam sigh. "Yeah Chuck; we know."

"Then could you tell me? 'Cause I don't, alright?" He looked around the empty room cautiously and then lowered his voice. "I'm not a good writer, alright? I've got no marketable skills. I'm not some hero who can just hit the road and fight monsters, okay? So until the world ends, I gotta live, alright? And the Supernatural books are all I've got. What else do you want me to do?"

Dean gave him a hard look and was about to tell him that he wanted him to shove it up his ass when they all suddenly heard an ear-piercing scream from upstairs and he and Sam quickly ran towards the noise, in spite of Chuck's pleas to stay behind.

.

Sam watched about twelve people dressed as FBI agents listen to the convention leader tell a horrible ghost story about a woman in the hotel who had butchered four boys years ago while stressing certain words like "haunted" and "butchered." He was pretty sure that, given different circumstances, he would have thought the bad acting pretty funny. But he was watching people play-act the drama of their lives, very poorly, and for fun and that wasn't funny.

Dean turned to him, wearing the overconfident smile that he used whenever he was just barely keeping it together. "Well, that's just about all the community theatre I can take."

"Yeah; this cannot get any weirder."

As soon as Sam finished his sentence, two men, one dressed as him and the other as Dean, passed in front of them and, as if on cue, made the evening decidedly weirder. The guy dressed as Dean, who looked like he probably shared his brother's eating habits without the vigorous exercise, turned to his friend, a balding, tall, pale, lanky guy, with a large nose, and said in an overly deep, base voice, "Dad said, he said I may have to kill you."

"Kill me." Sam scrunched up his nose. Did people think he sounded like that? It was like he had a bad case of laryngitis. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know."

He and Dean turned to each other and said in unison, "I need a drink," and then headed straight for the bar. Sam ordered himself a beer and Dean ordered a shot of whiskey. They killed their first drinks right away and then ordered a second. As Dean continued to down shot after shot, however, Sam sat with his second beer in hand, picking at the label and thinking. Even if that conversation with Dean had happened years ago, the feelings around it were still pretty raw. Dean should have listened to their father and killed him. That way, he couldn't have started the apocalypse. Dean could have kept hunting on his own until he found Lisa and Ben again and then he could have settled down with them and had a family. He knew Dean wanted that but would always deny himself of it for him. What Dean never knew though, was that if he just said the word, Sam would settle down with him anywhere he wanted to go. He couldn't care less where they went; if Dean liked it, it was home. But no way Dean wanted to settle down with his brother and, even if he did, they couldn't because Sam had stared the apocalypse and ruined everything.

"How ya doing?" he heard Dean say in a casual, flirtatious voice. Sam looked up and saw Dean checking out some chick dressed up as a ghost. Great. This night just couldn't get any worse.

.

Dean stared a little too attentively at the woman sitting beside him, intent on reclaiming some sort of feeling of masculinity. He knew Sam hated it when he hit on chicks when he wasn't around, but if he was sitting right there then it would be okay, right? Then he'd at least know that Dean wasn't going to run to a closet to bang her or anything. He'd had a few drinks and it seemed like sound reasoning to him.

The girl stared down at her phone and didn't even glace up. "Busy."

Dean, however, was undeterred. "Well, you certainly look lovely tonight. Especially for a dead chick."

"Buddy, I've heard that line seventeen times tonight. And all from dudes wearing MacGyver jackets." Then she looked up and actually saw him though, and her face changed. Dean smirked. See, he didn't look gay, or else she wouldn't look so interested in him, would she? The way she was eyeing him up, he was even pretty sure he could take her to the coat room right now if he wanted to. "But you seem different."

"How so?"

"Well, you don't seem scared of women."

Dean's smile grew wider. Yep, he hadn't lost it; women still found him attractive. And he was a man. He was a real man. He was going to ask her for her phone number and she was going to give it to him because he looked like the kind of guy who was interested in chicks and could show her a good time. And then later he'd give the number to Sam, who would probably burn it, but he didn't care. He wasn't interested in hooking up, only in being desired. Before he could ask though, a very frantic-looking Sam wanna-be suddenly burst into the room, slightly bloodied and shouting in terror.

"I'm telling you, I saw it upstairs, it was a real, live, dead ghost!"

Dean shot her one last flirtatious smile and excused himself, only to be greeted by Sam's disapproving bitch face as they ran up to the nearly hysterical nerd.

.

One terrified nerd, a quick talk with an actual hotel worker, and a little search through the attic later, Sam and Dean realized they had a real hunt on their hands. As they made their way down the stairs from the attic and back to the main room, Sam checked his watch. "I think it should be early enough that I can still get a hold of someone from the county Historical Society to give us some information on this place."

They made it to the bottom of the stairs and were standing side by side at the entrance of the main room. He watched as his brother's eyes scanned the room before letting his gaze fall back on to the ghost chick. She was already waving at him and Dean gave her a smirk and a wink. "Dude, I think she's really into me."

Sam crossed his arms. "Are you into her?"

Dean laughed. "You know, you're kinda cute when you're jealous. No, of course I'm not into her."

"Oh, good. Then you won't mind it when I tell you that if I catch you talking to her again that I'm going to kill you, right?"

Dean looked back at him as if he was going to protest, but all argument seemed to leave him as soon as he got a good look at Sam's face. He frowned. "No, of course not; I wasn't going to go back up to her, anyway. You know, leave the poor girl alone; no use in dangling something in front of her she can't have, right? I'll just sit and wait over…" he gestured in a vague direction and walked away.

Sam rolled his eyes and then whipped out his phone and dialed the 411 directory. As he paced around the room while on hold, he felt someone staring at him and looked up to see Becky and Chuck seated across the room from him at the bar with their swivel stools turned to face him. She was the one staring at him with her face composed into an expression of sadness and dotage, while Chuck had his face turned towards her, looking thoroughly miserable. Sam smiled politely and nodded his head in her direction. As soon as he acknowledged her existence, her face lit up and then she licked her hand and then blew it over to him while wearing a lecherous smile. Sam creased his brows in concern and discomfort. He totally could return the flirtatious smiles and gestures if he wanted to try and make Dean jealous, but he wasn't going to do that. First of all, he was a little afraid that if he got too close to her that she might chop off a lock of hair or a pinky finger as some sort of trophy, second of all, he was pretty sure Dean wasn't doing any of this shit to make him jealous, and third of all, Chuck looked like he was really into her and it didn't seem fair to get Chuck and Becky caught in the crossfire of their spat.

His phone stopped playing "Muskrat Love" and was thankfully replaced with what sounded like the voice of a middle-aged man. "Hello?"

"Oh, uh, hi." Sam once more felt someone staring at him and looked up to see Becky winking at him and licking the straw to her drink in a very provocative manner. He felt his neck and cheeks flush in embarrassment and he quickly turned away and faced the wall. "I, um, my name is Sam Winchester. I'm a college student studying historical murders in the area, and I wanted to ask if you had any information on the old Gore Orphanage?"

There was a pause. "The Gore Orphanage? Where was that, exactly?"

Even turned away, he could feel Becky's eyes on him. "It's, ah, it's now called the…Pineview Hotel?"

"Oh, yes! Let me look up some information on that for you, I remember reading about that; horrible, horrible business. I believe I have some old newspaper clippings on micro phish, if you'll just give me a minute."

"Sure, of course, no problem." Feeling restless, Sam began to pace, looking for a place in the room where he could avoid Becky's gaze.

"Here we are, even better! One police report. Let's see here, one Letitia Gore scalped her eight-year-old son Thomas Gore with a knife and then went on to kill three orphans under her care, Matthew Finley, Ryan Brown, and Adam Gehman, then went on to slit her wrists and bled out. Let's see…the police discovered the scene the day after it happened, the boys were lying in a bloody, messy pile in the corner of the attic, she was lying in a pool of blood beside her son. Authorities at the time believed she used the same knife to perpetuate all the killings."

"Wow. Uh, does it say where she's buried?"

"Let me see…nope, not seeing anything at all about that. I also have a newspaper clipping I can pull up…nope, nothing in there either. Sorry kid, can't help you there."

Sam frowned. "No, it's okay, thank you for all your help." He shut his phone and, avoiding Becky's gaze, made his way back across the room to his brother.

.

Later that night, after the ghost children trying to scalp them flamed out, Sam and Dean rose to their feet and breathed a sigh of relief at having once again narrowly escaped death. Dean picked up the iron fireplace poker that had been knocked to the ground during the fight. "You know, maybe that guy was right; maybe we should put these things on a bungee."

Sam nodded. Yeah; it actually wasn't that bad of an idea. That German guy who was dressed up as the Hookman was actually pretty smart to think of something so practical like that, the poor, dead bastard. "We should call the police about that poor guy; he's still lying scalped and bloody on the floor."

Dean blinked and ran his hand over his face. "Yeah, you're probably right. But man, after that, I'm getting some sleep; feel like I haven't slept in a damn week."

Sam cocked his head. "Maybe you haven't."

"Right; I'm going to go up front and check us into a room; you call the police about the dead guy in the hall."

"Get us a king-size bed this time, would you, Dean?"

Dean frowned but didn't argue. Instead, he dropped the iron poker, which fell to the floor with a loud clank, and then walked out the door and down the stairs to the front desk.

.

The next morning found Sam, and it seemed Dean, in remarkably better moods than they had been the day before. They had solved a case, saved some people, gotten a good night's sleep in a comfortable bed, and Sam had even managed to get a couple rounds of great sex out of the deal. At first Dean had been a little reluctant, only seeming interested in sleep, but with a little bit of cuddling, kissing, and some well-placed fondling touches, Sam had managed to get Dean to give him some gentle, loving sex before bed, some hot, mind-blowing, vigorous sex in the morning, and then, after Sam played with Dean using his hands for a bit, they'd even traded blow-jobs while in the shower. After all that, his ass was a bit sore, but he sure as hell wasn't complaining.

As they drove away from the convention, Dean smirked and looked over at Sam. "So, how'd it go with Becky?"

Sam laughed. "She let me down easy."

Dean burst out laughing and slapped his knee. "Sammy boy, you really are too nice sometimes."

Sam shook his head. "Nah, it's okay; builds up her self-esteem a little. Besides, what would be the point of being a jerk about it?"

Dean reached over and gently caressed the little bit of stubble forming on Sam's jawline. "What about me? Did I let you off easy?"

Sam reached over and playfully grabbed Dean's crotch through his jeans. "Not last night or this morning."

"Sammy, I just gave you four orgasms within the last twelve hours; please don't tell me you're horny again."

Sam smirked. "Five; I gave you four. And not yet, but check back with me again in an hour."

Dean grinned and settled back a little in his seat. "So, tell me about this new lead on the colt."

"Sure. Although we are going to have to hunt a crossroads demon."

Dean growled in exasperation. "Great. Of course we are."


	21. Caught Sam Handed

The two of them had been driving for two hours down a scenic highway, headed to nowhere in particular, when Sam finished telling his story to a very incredulous-looking Dean. "Crowley? That's the demon's name? Well, that's original. So, did Chuck happen to mention in any of his books where we might be able to find this Crowley?"

Sam shook his head. "No, Becky said Bella handed the gun off to him at a crossroads outside of Des Moines, but that was it."

"Great." Dean rolled his eyes. "You know Sam, it just pisses me off. The only thing that bitch ever did was screw us. Man, I really wish she was still alive so I could shoot her ass."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, well, I still owe her from the time she shot me, remember?"

Dean growled. Yeah, he definitely remembered. She had to have been the only person who had ever hurt his Sammy and lived long enough afterwards to tell the tale. "So anyway, this Crowley, we don't know where he is or how to find him but we do know that this thing is a crossroads demon and he has the colt. Anything else?"

"Well, apparently, this Crowley is pretty high up on the crossroads demon chain of command. Becky said he was Lilith's right-hand man and she thinks that he might have also been her lover."

Dean wrinkled his nose in disgust. Whatever that Lilith bitch really was as a human, Dean couldn't help but only think of her as a little girl and that…that was just sick. "So, if Lilith is dead, then I guess right now he's his own boss."

"Uh, yeah, I guess, maybe."

"Alright, well, either way I think we should call Cas in on this one, what'd you think?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, sounds good. I mean, I don't know how we're going to be able to find him otherwise without us having to just summon him."

"Yeah, and what good is that gonna do, right? I mean, it's not like this thing's gonna be carrying a demon-killing gun on him."

"Exactly."

Dean turned off a highway and onto a gravel road that was densely overgrown with a thick cover of trees and foliage. As far as Dean could tell there were no houses on this road, but it was wholly possible that there were and they had just been swallowed up by the forest that lay on either side of them, so full and grown-in that it almost completely blocked out the sun overhead. After about a quarter mile though, the trees unexpectedly opened up to the sun and he saw a little shoulder on the right side of the road with little dock and a bridge that overlooked an expansive lake. He pulled off to the shoulder and shut off the car. "Well, this looks as good a place as any to give Cas a call." With that, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped through his contacts until he found the right number.

Castiel picked up on the second ring. "Dean?"

"Yeah Cas, it's me. Look, Sam and I think we might have a lead on the colt. We're on Laurel Road in some little Podunk town called, uh, Eaton way out in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska. Do you think you could –"

"I'm there now."

Castiel's voice travelled to him both through the phone and also from the backseat of the Impala where he had suddenly appeared, still clutching the phone to his ear. The angel looked at them with his usual calm yet intense expression.

Dean turned his body to face Castiel, sighed and quickly shut his phone. "Jesus, Cas."

Castiel then also shut his phone. "Hello Dean. Sam."

"Hey Cas," Sam said. "So, we've got a lead on the colt, we think it's with a demon named Crowley."

Castiel nodded. "I've heard of him."

Dean's eyes widened in surprise. "You have? So, you think you can find him then?"

Cas stared back at Dean. "Fortunately, he should be relatively easier to find than most. Unlike most demons, he has a permanent residence."

Dean blinked in surprise. "Demons keep a permanent residence?"

"This one does. Crowley has a distinct style. He prefers to possess those who can afford him a lavish lifestyle when he's not making deals. I don't doubt that he'll be covering his tracks through some sort of magic so that he can't be found while he's at his residence, but there should still be times when I can track him. Once I find him and track him to his residence then I can try to get inside and get the gun."

"Okay then." Sam shrugged and looked over at Dean. "Sounds great."

"There is one thing. Crowley is cunning; if he has the gun, then he will know that others are trying to find him to get it and I may not be able to get in. In that case, I will need the both of you to find a way inside and I don't suggest going alone."

Sam nodded his head. "Okay, great, yeah. We'll make some calls."

"I'll start looking." They heard Castiel's wings flap and felt a gust of wind on their faces and then he was gone.

Sam shifted his eyes from the empty backseat over to Dean. "How long do you think it'll take him?"

Dean shrugged. "With Cas, who knows?"

Sam leaned over and kissed Dean on the lips. "Well, in the meantime, I guess we'll just wait here, then."

Dean kissed Sam back for a moment but soon pushed him away. "Come on, Cas could call us at any second now."

Sam shrugged and leaned in again. "Well, if he calls, we'll stop."

"Yeah, and if he suddenly shows up when we're naked in the backseat? Come on, we just had sex, like four hours ago." With a final shove, he pushed Sam away and got out of the car and Sam followed.

At that moment, oddly enough, Castiel did call and Sam sat on the hood of the car, turned away from Dean and looked out at the lake while Dean had his conversation. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but he was starting to worry about Dean; something felt off. He expected Dean to sometimes turn down sex, but since yesterday, Dean seemed to be avoiding touching him and almost even seemed annoyed at Sam's attempts to initiate close physical contact.

His mind flashed to the night before as he had climbed into the king-sized bed that Dean had fortunately gotten for them, at his urging. Dean was already lying in bed, still dressed in his jeans and faded blue button-up shirt, TV remote in hand as he channel-surfed. Sam had expected Dean to just fall asleep the minute his head his head the pillow, so the fact that Dean was still obviously awake and a little restless had given him some hope for sex. He stripped down to his t-shirt and boxer shorts and climbed into bed next to his brother.

"You might not wanna do that, Sammy. If the police get too curious about the dead dude in the hallway and we end up needing to run in the middle of the night, I think you running out in your underwear might draw some attention."

Sam sidled over to Dean and gently kissed him on the side of the neck as he slid a hand down Dean's chest and stomach, finally stopping when it met the crotch of his jeans. He then pushed his lips to Dean's ear. "Am I drawing your attention?" He swiped his tongue along the shell of his ear and then moved his mouth back to Dean's neck, kissing and sucking on it while he also began to slowly drag down the zipper of Dean's jeans. As he did so, he felt Dean's semi-hard length beginning to grow larger.

Dean aimed the remote at the TV and flipped it off and then turned on his side, away from Sam. "Come on Sam, leave me alone; I'm tired."

Sam hadn't been all that surprised to be turned down; after all, he knew that Dean really was tired, but the way he'd done it surprised him. When Dean had turned down sex before, he hadn't acted like this, almost as if he was angry that Sam was touching him.

Sam had decided not to push the issue. "Okay, yeah, I know you are. Would it be alright if I held you?"

"Sure, whatever."

Sam wrapped an arm around Dean's middle, pushing their bodies together. He knew Dean had to be feeling his erection pushing up against his ass, but he really couldn't help it. He wanted sex. He knew Dean had to, too; after all, it had been a little while, but then again, he understood that sometimes sleep had to take precedence. As his erection came into contact with Dean's ass though, he felt Dean's breath hitch a little and his body tensed ever so slightly. Dean definitely wanted this as badly as he did, but he was fighting it. Maybe it was so he could sleep, but being horny and with a hard-on usually wasn't very conducive to getting a good night's sleep. With his arm that was already draped over Dean's body, Sam began rubbing small circles on Dean's stomach, his hand making wider passes with each rotation. He leaned forward until his nose was in Dean's hair and inhaled deeply, taking in Dean's scent, and then began to slowly lay hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses on the back of Dean's neck.

"Are you sure you don't want sex?"

His hand made a circle wide enough that his hand brushed Dean's erection through his jeans. Dean stifled a moan that it seemed he didn't want Sam to hear but also made no attempts to stop him as Sam pulled down his zipper and unbuttoned his jeans. He worked his hand into Dean's pants and rubbed his hard length through the boxers as he continued kissing the back of Dean's neck. Then he moved his mouth to the spot right behind his ear and Dean let out a moan and rolled onto his back.

"C'mere," he growled as he grabbed Sam by the back of the head and brought their mouths together. After that, Dean hadn't put up any more of a fight and, despite his obvious fatigue, the sex that night was great. Of course, the second round the next morning was even better, all hard and vigorous as Dean used all his new-found energy to kiss his back and neck and grab his hips as he drove into him from behind, grunting and holding onto him the entire time.

The sound of Dean's voice broke through his thoughts. He was still talking into his phone. "Going down?" His tongue was practically dripping with mocking sarcasm that Castiel probably wouldn't pick up on and Sam wondered what kind of outdated or otherwise odd turn of phrase that the angel had used this time from his strange repertoire. "Right. Okay huggy-bear, just don't lose him."

Sam turned to face him and watched as Dean shut his phone. "So, what's up? He found him?"

"Yeah, he's making a deal right now. Cas is going to call me back when he gets –"

Dean's phone went off again, playing its usual ringtone of The Scorpions' "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and Dean held up the phone in front of Sam for a second before answering it. "Yeah." There was a pause and then, "That's okay, you did great. We'll take it from here." He hung up and looked up at Sam. "We got him. Cas managed to follow him to his house, but he can't get in. Some Enocian spellwork's keeping him out, so that means we gotta go in there ourselves."

Sam nodded. "How about I'll call Bobby, you call Ellen and Jo?"

Sam fished his phone out from his pocket, dialed Bobby's number and was surprised when Bobby picked up on the first ring. "Hey Bobby, it's Sam."

"Yeah, how ya doing, boy?"

"Good Bobby, real good. Actually, I'm calling because Dean and I think we have a lead on the Colt –"

"Yeah, I know"

"What? You do? How?"

"Could have something to do with Cas standing in my living room."

Sam snorted. Good ol' Cas. "Yeah, I should've figured."

"Cas was filling me in on the details when you called. I can help you with the planning, but with my legs I'm not going to be much help otherwise. You call Ellen and Jo about this? Something this big, they're gonna want in on it."

Sam looked across the car at his brother, who was sitting on the hood, phone held up to his ear, brows knit together in a thoughtful look of concentration while nodding his head. "Yeah, Bobby, Dean's on the phone with them now."

"Well get him to tell them to get their asses over here pronto so we can work something out. If what Cas is telling me is true then we're going to need a good, well thought-out plan before we try and deal with this thing."

"Okay, I will. Dean and I are in Nebraska, so we should be by in a couple of hours."

"Alright, well, you know I ain't going anywhere. See you when you get here."

"Bye, Bobby." Sam shut his phone and then turned his head toward Dean and snapped his fingers at him. Dean didn't stop his conversation but he did look over at Sam who managed, through a few mouthed words and vague hand gestures, to effectively communicate Bobby's message.

Dean nodded at him and then turned away from him again. "Yeah, hey, Ellen, how fast can you and Jo could get over to Bobby's so we can work this whole thing out? Great, see you then." He shut his phone, stuffed it back in his jeans pocket, and looked up at Sam. "They're in Minnesota packing up after finishing up with some werewolf thing. Ellen says they should be at Bobby's in about four hours."

Sam sighed. "Alright, let's get going, I guess."

.

Two and a half hour later Sam and Dean were grabbing their duffels out of the trunk and heading up Bobby's drive-way. Bobby opened the screen door and rolled out in his chair to meet them.

"Hey boys; good to see you again so soon."

Dean came up beside Bobby and patted him on the shoulder. "Hey, Bobby; how's life been treating you?"

Bobby rolled his eyes and gestured to his chair. "How do you think, ya idjit?"

Just then Sam came up, bent down, and gave Bobby a hug. Bobby reached out and wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders, crushing Sam's neck against the old man's bony shoulder. "Ough!" Sam released Bobby and stood back up to his full height. "Hey, Bobby; good to see you."

Bobby smiled at him and then began rolling himself back inside the house. "Well, come on, get in here, I'll bet you boys want to unpack."

Sam and Dean followed Bobby inside and then both of them made their way up to their room to start unpacking.

"You don't think we should take the other room?" Sam asked as he uncertainly grabbed a shirt from his duffel bag.

Dean, who was unpacking with gusto, smirked at Sam. "Nah. This is our usual room. Besides, this room is the one with the private bathroom; they snooze, they lose, Sammy."

"What are you, eight?" Sam laughed and then grabbed a few more articles of clothes, this time with much more confidence, and brought the already folded items over to the same dresser where Dean was already hurriedly packing his things in one of the top drawers. Dean moved to the side as he jammed shirts and pants into the drawer so that Sam could also begin to put away his things. Sam crouched and then got down on his knees so he could start putting his clothes away when he looked over and saw Dean's crotch in his face. He dropped the clothes and grabbed the backs of Dean's thighs.

"Hmm, I can think of a few things we could do in that private bathroom," he growled.

"You know, we don't have a lot of time before Ellen and Jo get here." Dean's words sounded hesitant, but his tone was deep and gravelly with arousal and god, if that didn't make Sam want this all the more.

"That's okay." With a quick flick of the tongue he flipped up Dean's zipper and then leaned forward, caught it in his teeth, and slowly brought it, tooth by tooth, all the way down.

"Mmm." Sam looked up and saw Dean staring down at him, his eyes heavily lidded and pupils blown wide with lust. "You look so fucking hot right now. Shit, Sam, what're you going to do, you gonna suck my cock right here, gonna do it right now where someone could hear us?"

Sam moved his hands from the backs of Dean's thighs to his ass, firmly grabbing a hard, muscled globe in each hand. "You think you can be quiet?"

In reply, Dean reached down and unbuttoned his jeans and Sam gruffly pulled them and his boxers down and they fell to the floor. Dean's cock was already hard and swollen and Sam slowly ran the tip of his tongue along the tip of the head, and then in the slit, teasing him. With one hand he reached up and began rubbing a finger against the sensitive area behind Dean's balls.

Dean closed his eyes and stifled a moan. "Shit, Sam. Pants off, on the bed, now."

Sam hurriedly toed off his shoes, ripped off his socks, pulled off his pants and boxers, rushed over to the bed, and climbed onto it, getting down on his hands and knees. Dean was there in an instant, standing by the bed. "Get on your side. Face me."

His side? Feeling a little confused now, Sam did as he was told. "What're you going to do, Dean?"

Dean lay down on his side so that his head was facing the foot of the bed, his hard cock in Sam's face and he then bent his left leg at the knee and rested his foot behind his right leg so that Sam had full access to him and he finally understood what Dean was getting at. He felt Dean massaging his hard length and then the soft wetness of a tongue as it slid along every inch of his head and then Sam moved his legs into a similar position to Dean's so that his hands and mouth could roam anywhere he wanted around his aroused, sensitive flesh. Sam looked down for a moment to watch Dean's tongue as it gingerly licked him, darting in and out of those perfectly full lips and then he pushed the head of Dean's hard cock past his own lips and stopped. Instead of moving, he kept the head in his mouth, sucking and licking it, until he felt Dean move his hips forward, forcing more of it into his mouth and that was when he began to move, sinking his mouth down further and further along the hard shaft with each movement of his head until he had Dean as far as he could comfortably fit inside his mouth. Dean, in turn took Sam in as deeply as he could and started up a steady rhythm, sucking him nice and slow. Sam could feel warm air gently ghost across his balls with each time Dean exhaled through his nose and when he began using his free hand to massage Sam's balls, Sam let out a muffled moan that vibrated around Dean's dick. Dean moaned in response and his mouth slowly picked up the pace. Within minutes, Sam let out a muffled shout and then he was coming, wave upon wave of hot come filling Dean's mouth. Dean swallowed and then licked his lips, catching any extra drops that might have been lingering there.

Sam gave an extra hard suck and Dean threw his head back in pleasure. "Fuck yeah, mm, Sam, a-ah, that's it, just like that!"

Dean's words brought another moan out of Sam as he brought the pace up to a feverish pace, sucking Dean hard and fast in a way that almost begged him to come.

"Saaaaammm, aahh, fuck, baby, yes, gonna –"

Dean exploded into Sam's mouth and Sam swallowed it down and continued to suck until Dean was completely spent and starting to go a little limp. Sam released Dean's cock and then Dean turned around and climbed on top of Sam, kissing him passionately. Sam could taste the salty musk of both of their releases mingling in his mouth. They were both so busy with each other that they didn't notice when the door to the bedroom opened and Jo stepped into the room.

When she saw them, she gasped and both brothers whipped their heads toward the door and in her direction.

"Shit!" Without thinking, Dean quickly jumped off of Sam and began grabbing for his pants beside the bed, while Sam, feeling his entire body flush red in mortification, grappled with the covers in a desperate attempt to pull them over his half-naked body.

Jo's cheeks turned bright red and she squeezed her eyes shut in obvious embarrassment. "Sorry, didn't mean to – we just got here, I heard voices, thought I'd say 'hi,' – so sorry!" She turned and bolted from the room, taking care to shut the door behind her.

In the meantime, Dean had finally managed to get his pants back on and he raced out of the room behind her, leaving Sam alone and horrified.

Jo raced back to her and her mom's room and shut the door behind her. She had been in the middle of throwing sheets on the bed when she'd heard some muffled sounds coming out of Sam and Dean's room and realized that they must've already arrived and thought she'd pop on over to their room to greet them.

Wow, what a terrible idea that had been. She turned back to the bed and began smoothing out the clean sheet she'd just thrown over it.

Dean burst into the room, fully dressed and a little breathless, and held his hands up in front of his chest, palms out. "Jo, wait a minute, I –"

Jo shut her eyes and shook her head. "Please, not now, Dean."

"Just, Jo, please, don't freak out."

Jo looked down and began tucking the bottom of the bed sheet under the mattress. "Do I look like I'm freaking out? I just really don't want to talk about it. You're with Sam, whatever, it's fine."

Dean gaped at her in open-mouthed shock. "It's…fine?"

Was it fine? No, not really. It was kind of gross and, if she was being really honest with herself, she still had a little crush on Dean. But they had bigger problems at hand, like getting the Colt and hunting the Devil, so any kind of discussion about Sam and Dean's sexuality or their incestuous relationship, not to mention her personal feelings about it, would just have to take a backseat. She looked back down to the bed and began tucking the bottom edge of the bed sheet underneath the mattress. "I mean, three years ago I probably would have had some sort of nervous breakdown over it, maybe even as recently as a year ago I would have seriously freaked out, and God knows what would have happened, but –" She looked up at him and shrugged. I grew up, she thought. "People change."

Dean was standing still, giving her a hard look. "What changed?"

What changed? A few things. She'd grown up in the past couple of years since she'd started hunting with her mom and in that time, she'd realized a few things about Dean, like that no matter how much he flirted with her that he would still always treat her like a little sister instead of a lover. She'd also finally met enough men along the way to figure out the difference between a man who calls a woman the next morning and one who doesn't and unfortunately Dean wasn't on the right side of that dividing line. And then there was that thing with Sam. When she'd first met the Winchesters, she'd been too interested in laying a claim on Dean to see it, but there was something about Sam and Dean's relationship that was…different. She'd never quite figured it out, but it was definitely there, and as she'd sat thinking about Dean during stake-outs, long hours of research, driving, and down-time, she'd realized with increasing clarity that it was probably something that she shouldn't get in the middle of. And then when she'd walked into that room and saw the two of them laying on top of each other, half-naked and frantically kissing each other, it was like the last piece of a complicated puzzle had finally clicked into place.

She looked Dean in the eye. "I just realized that you could never be mine."

"I'm not gay."

Jo stepped into Dean's space and cupped his cheek in her hand. "Oh, Dean." She sighed. "Tell Sam to get dressed so we can work out our plan for tonight." With that she stepped out of the room and headed down the stairs.


	22. The More Things Change

Dean stared, mouth gaping after Jo even long after she'd left, looking at the open doorway to Bobby's spare guestroom until Sam stepped in, wearing a guilty, mortified expression. He was wearing the same jeans he'd had on before but had on a different shirt and it looked like he had also quickly run a comb through his hair. He looked at Dean for a moment and then, seeing his expression, shifted his eyes to the floor.

"I'm sorry. It was a stupid idea, I shouldn't've…"

Dean worked to shut his mouth and give Sam a look of totally composed calm. "It's not your fault, Sam."

"Was it, I mean, was it really that bad?"

"No. Jo's fine, no problem." He pushed past Sam. "They're gonna want us downstairs. I'm gonna go brush my teeth and head down." With that, he walked down the hallway and into their room, shutting the door behind him.

Sam watched him with troubled eyes. The smell of some sort of spiced meat was wafting its way upstairs, meaning that Ellen had probably taken over Bobby's kitchen and was cooking them all some dinner. He could still taste himself and Dean in his mouth and would have really liked to brush his teeth before he went downstairs, but Dean clearly needed some time alone. Sam gave the closed door one last troubled look, sighed and then headed downstairs.

.

They parked the Impala a couple of blocks away from Crowley's estate and climbed out of the car. Dean looked impressed as he glanced around at the neighborhood full of large houses and perfectly manicured lawns. "Nice digs."

Jo stood up and then pulled down at the bottom hem of her low and high-cut black cocktail dress and adjusted the straps, showing her obvious discomfort. "Fuck, do any women actually like wearing shoes like these?"

Dean looked down at her feet and snorted. "You're the one who picked them."

Jo glared at him but Sam cut in. "You look great. If you can just suffer through it for a little while, I think this is really going to work."

Dean rubbed his hands together. "Alright, last check. Sam, you got the knife?"

Sam pushed back his jacket to reveal the handle sticking out from the waistband of his jeans.

"And I've got the wire cutters, salt, and spray paint," Jo said, holding out her shabby, green bag to Dean.

Dean eyed up the bag but didn't take it. "Why do I have to be the one to carry it?"

She stepped back and gestured to her outfit. "Gotta look the part, right? How convincing is it gonna look if I'm carrying around that bag dressed like this?"

Dean rolled his eyes, but snatched the bag from her hands. "Alright, fine. We clear on the plan?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I think I'm all set."

Dean turned to Jo. "Alright, now remember, don't get in the view of the security cameras until Sam and I are in our places."

Jo nodded, looking exasperated. "I know already, don't worry about me. Just…make sure you don't get distracted with each other while I'm fighting for my life, okay?"

Dean rolled his eyes again and glared angrily at her. "Oh come on! Yeah, nothing gets me harder than watching a demon attack."

Jo put her hands out in front of her chest palms out, closed her eyes, and shook her head. "You know what, I'm sorry. Let's just go."

They split up right away just in case there were any demons on the alert that Cas had missed earlier, Jo heading right to the front entrance from the street and the two of them making a more circuitous path around the block. Dean slung Jo's bag and his shotgun over his shoulder as they walked.

"Can you friggin' believe Jo?" Dean growled as they both ducked behind a bush near the front gate.

Adrenaline was pumping through Sam's veins as he withdrew the knife from the waistband of his jeans and waited for Jo to approach the gate opening and he'd barely heard his brother speak. "Huh?"

"Jo, talking about us 'getting distracted with each other while she's fighting for her life,' like we're suddenly not real hunters or something."

Jo was starting to approach the front gate, walking with a slightly exaggerated swing of the hips, even despite her difficult-to-walk-in shoes that she'd been complaining about just minutes ago. Sam really didn't care what Jo thought about them. But Dean obviously did, and that meant that he was going to have to play along. "Well," he whispered carefully, making sure they were still out of earshot, "guess we'll just have to prove her wrong."

In front of them, Jo rang the intercom on the front gate. "Hello," she said in her best lilting feminine voice, "my car broke down, I need some help."

"I'll be down in a minute," a mysterious voice said over the intercom. Definitely not Crowley; probably one of his mook guards.

Jo turned around and shot Sam and Dean's hiding place a cocky look before the front gates opened and she stepped inside. As she did so, she folded her hands in front of her stomach, giving them the signal that the second guard, who'd been looking after the only other entrance in the place, had left his post and was also coming forward. Sam and Dean carefully made their way through the bushes and past all the security cameras to run as fast as they could to the inside of the courtyard before Jo got herself into serious trouble.

As it happened, the demons were easy to take out. As Sam stared down at the dead bodies, Jo shot him a quick look of appreciation before she walked past him to Dean, who was standing behind him and holding out her green tote bag.

"Nice work, Jo."

"Thanks." She took the tote from Dean and then dug around until she pulled out the wire cutters. "Shall we?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. Give us five minutes to get past the security cameras and lay out the devil's traps before you cut the lights; that should be enough time before we let him know we're here."

"You want me to go inside with you and help spray paint the traps?"

Dean shook his head. "Nah. When you're done with the wires, why don't you get inside the car and strap on a pair of sneakers? You did good. Sam and I got this one."

Jo slung her bag over her shoulder and then turned and headed towards her next position around the side of the house.

.

As Sam, Dean, and Crowley stood together in a nice study with two dead demons lying on the floor right outside, Dean was trying his best to look confident and keep his treacherous body from shaking. Crowley wasn't like any other demon he'd ever met. When having just narrowly avoided stepping in a devil's trap, for instance, Dean had never once been asked by a demon if he had any idea how much the rug he'd just ruined costs. Crowley's motivations and the things that gave him pleasure were still unclear and Dean wasn't sure how to react. It would have been easier if this thing was just straight-up bloodthirsty. The demon had just killed two of his own with the Colt and was now sitting on a desk in front of them as he spoke, looking way more calm than any demon had a right to be when sitting next to the Colt. It was putting it mildly to say that this hunt wasn't working out exactly as he'd imagined it.

"If Lucifer manages to exterminate humankind," Crowley paused for a moment and eyed both of them up, as if allowing it to sink in. "We're next." He took a small sip from a lowball glass holding some sort of brown liquor and smiled. "So help me, eh? Come on, let's go back to simpler, better times, when we could all follow our natures. I'm in sales, dammit! So, what do you say? What if," he grabbed the gun from the desk and held it, handle first, to Sam, "I give you this thing, and you go kill the Devil."

Dean looked over at Sam and saw that the big vein on his right temple was sticking out the way it always did when he was thinking too hard. Not that Dean could blame him; this was too easy, there had to be some sort of catch or strings attached. Crowley, however, just smiled wider and he shook the pistol in front of Sam, prompting him to take it, and finally, cautiously, Sam reached out with long, outstretched fingers and accepted the gun. He held it up and shook it around in his hand for a moment, as if testing the weight.

"Okay."

"Great." Crowley grinned wide, showing all his teeth and chuckled.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the Devil is by chance, would you?"

Crowley knit his brows together for a second in deep thought. "Thursday… Birdies tell me he has an appointment in Carthage, Missouri."

Thursday. That was tomorrow. It probably wasn't a real lead, but who knew? This demon had, for some reason, been strangely helpful so far.

Sam turned back to Crowley. "Great. Thanks."

Without another moment's hesitation, he aimed the gun right between Crowley's eyes and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a silent click. No bullet. Dean watched in horror as Crowley, completely unharmed, continued to smile as if nothing had happened. Shit. This was when they got to the punchline. He'd given them a gun with no bullets and now he was going to tear them and the gun into pieces.

"Oh, yeah, right," Crowley said, in a still ridiculously calm and friendly voice, as if he didn't even recognize his or Sam's panic-stricken faces. "You probably need some more ammunition." He calmly walked back behind the desk and began rooting through a drawer.

Wow, this thing was smart and had taken care to cover its bases. He'd taken the time to learn their habits so they could get in without feeling like they'd been let in, and had taken all but two bullets from the gun so he could shoot his own guards and prove the gun was the real, genuine article, while also making sure there was no ammunition left to kill him afterwards. And now he was giving them the bullets?

"Um, excuse me for asking, but aren't you kind of signing your own death warrant? I mean, what happens to you if we go up against the Devil and lose?"

Crowley looked up from his search. "Number one: he's going to wipe us all out anyway. Two, after you leave here, I go on an extended vacation to all points nowhere, and three…" Crowley suddenly raised his voice to an angry shout as he threw the bag of ammunition at him, "how about you don't miss, okay! Morons!"

Dean opened up the pouch to find that it indeed had well over a dozen bullets inside of it, but when he looked up again Crowley had vanished and was, no doubt, far away from their location.

Sam looked at him and sighed. "What'd'ya think?"

Dean snapped the ammunition pouch closed, and shoved it into his back pocket. "I think that if he's telling the truth then we'd better shag ass before some other demons realize what just happened." He quickly walked towards the doorway and Sam followed.

They raced to the Impala and quickly got inside. Dean handed off his shotgun to Jo, started up the engine, and threw the car into gear. As they pulled out onto the street, Jo leaned forward and popped her head into the front seat.

"Did you get it?"

Sam pulled the gun out from his waistband and showed it to her. "Yeah, we got it," he said quietly.

Jo cocked an eyebrow. "Well, don't look so happy about it."

"We think it might be a trick," Dean broke in.

"What do you mean? It's not the real Colt?"

"No, it's real," Sam confirmed.

"Okay, so then what's the problem?"

Dean looked over to her for a second while trying to also keep his eye out on the road. "It's just the way it happened, you know…it just handed off the gun as if it couldn't get rid of it fast enough."

Jo's eyes widened in surprise. "It just gave it to you? Why?"

Dean shook his head. "It said a few things, but it probably wasn't telling the truth, so, honestly, we're not even sure."

Jo shrugged. "Well, whatever the reason is, we got it, right?" She pulled out her phone. "I'm gonna call my mom and tell her what happened and then when we get back to Bobby's I'm changing out of this dress and then, what the hell, let's celebrate, right?"

.

Later that night as Dean, Jo, and Sam sat at Bobby's kitchen table with three empty shot glasses sitting in front of each of them, Dean's head was swimming from the alcohol and he was no longer sure how many shots he'd taken. He pushed away from the table and stood up on wobbly legs.

"Okay, I'm done, gonna go grab a beer."

He walked over to the fridge, grabbed three beers, placed two of them in front of Sam and Jo, then went into the living room and greeted Bobby, who was sitting in the corner of the room trying to set up his ham radio, and sat down at the desk with Sam's laptop. He was feeling pretty grateful that his geek brother had brought it down to do a little research before they'd left for Crowley's because he really didn't feel like trying to stumble up the stairs to get his own. Carthage, eh? So that was supposedly where the Devil would be. He wondered if Crowley was actually telling the truth. Well, there was only one way to find out; he opened up the laptop, logged onto the Internet, and began looking through the police database.

Ellen sat down in Dean's newly vacated chair and looked at Sam. "You still doing shots?"

Sam felt a little lightheaded from all the whiskey he'd just had and he knew he wouldn't survive another drinking game without passing out in the middle of it so that Dean would have to drag his limp body upstairs. He flipped the top off his beer. "Nah; think I'm sticking with this for the rest of the night."

Jo, who was already sipping her beer, held out her bottle as well. "Me too."

Ellen sighed and then gestured to Castiel, who was standing awkwardly in the doorway. "Alright big boy, get your ass over here and sit down."

Sam got up from his chair and allowed the angel to sit and Castiel watched as Ellen grabbed another shot glass from Bobby's cabinet, set all of them up two rows of five, and filled them with whiskey.

"You ever had whiskey before?"

Cas looked down at the shots. "I've never had liquor."

Sam saw Ellen give Jo a wide grin as she picked up her first shot. "Well then, this should be interesting."

No doubt watching Cas get drunk would be very interesting, if angels even could get drunk, but he was going to have to miss it. Dean was sitting in front of his laptop with an intense look on his face that made him look ridiculously hot and, at the moment, that was far more interesting to him than watching Castiel do shots. Sam sat down across the desk from Dean.

"So, it looks like everyone's having a pretty good time in there."

Dean didn't look up from his research as he nodded and gave a quick grunt of approval and Sam felt it necessary to push the laptop shut and set it on a chair beside him. Dean shot him an annoyed look. "Hey, I was looking at that." But then Sam leaned in and began eyeing him up and Dean's expression changed to surprise.

"Hey, what'd' a say we go back upstairs and finish what we started earlier? I don't think anyone would miss us."

Dean took a swig of his beer and eyed him up and Sam thought for a moment that he might actually get laid, but then Dean's eyes shifted away to look at something over Sam's shoulder and his expression went back to serious.

"Maybe later, right now I'm doing a little bit of research into what that Crowley said about Carthage."

"Right, okay." Sam sighed. "It's gotta be a trap, right?"

Dean chuckled. "Sam Winchester having trust issues with a demon. Well, better late than never."

Sam smirked and nodded. "Yeah, and thank you again for your continued support," he said dryly, holding out his beer in the gesture of a toast.

"You're welcome."

Dean clinked his beer bottle against Sam's and they both took a drink. Sam watched Dean wrap his mouth around the bottle. He laughed and shook his head as he realized that, even when Dean was being a dick he still managed to somehow look incredibly fuckable. He took a swig of his own beer and set it down.

They stayed there and talked about the case for a while. Well, okay, more like argued. Dean showed him all his research and told him that he was pretty sure that Crowley wasn't lying and that Lucifer really was in Carthage. Sam could agree with him on that, but then Dean told him that he couldn't come along and Sam nearly exploded with anger.

"Have we learned a damn thing? If we do this, we're doing it together." Seriously, when was Dean going to learn that that was the only way they were ever going to accomplish anything? Everything was better when they worked on it together. Everything.

Dean looked like he was going to argue but after one good look at his face he stopped, thought about it for a moment, picked up his beer, and pointed it at him. "Okay. But it's a stupid friggin' idea."

Sam nodded, feeling somewhat satisfied with his answer. Dean suddenly looked over Sam's shoulder again and Sam turned around to see Jo leaning over the kitchen table, laughing with Ellen and Castiel. Dean's face looked more serious and contemplative than turned-on, but he was still very obviously eyeing up Jo. Was he really checking out Jo right in front of him? He turned to his brother, once again feeling like he might explode with anger.

"Boy, talk about stupid ideas."

Dean took one last swig of his beer and set it down. "True dat," he said with a little slur as he stood up and crossed the room toward Jo.

As Sam watched him walk past, he felt a mixture of shock, anger, and horror. Was Dean just screwing with him or was there seriously a chance that, even drunk, he'd mess around on him with Jo? He was pretty sure that Jo still had a thing for Dean, but would she still go for it, even after what she'd seen? He sat transfixed as he watched, not really sure what one does in this sort of situation, and waited to see what would happen.

As Dean crossed the room over to Jo, he kept thinking of all the events that had happened the past couple of days: the nerds talking about "homoerotic subtext" in Chuck's books; the lack of Jo's freak-out when she saw him and Sam; the piteous look she gave him when he said he wasn't gay; her snarky little comment earlier when they were at Crowley's. And then he thought about Sam's comment when Dean had said something about it. I guess we'll just have to prove her wrong, he'd said. And then while he and Sam were talking just then as they sat at Bobby's desk, he noticed that she kept giving them little glances now and then. She was probably waiting for them to sneak upstairs, thinking that she had them all figured out. Well, she didn't. None of them did. He was going to prove her wrong. He came up behind her right as she was pulling a beer out from the fridge and when she turned around she almost ran into him. He shot her one of his winning, flirtatious smiles.

"Hey."

She returned his smile and gave a little flip of her hair. "Hey."

He stepped back and leaned against the sink. "So, dangerous mission tomorrow. Guess it's time to eat, drink, and, you know, make merry."

She looked up at him while absently fingering the lid of her beer and grinned flirtatiously. "Are you giving me the 'last night on Earth' speech?"

Dean eyed her up nervously. What the hell was he doing? "What?"

"What?" she mimicked him.

"No!" He let out an odd little laugh, then paused for a moment and, despite a little voice in his fuzzy, alcohol-soaked brain that kept whispering something about wrong and Sam, he decided to just plunge ahead. "If I was, would, ah, would that work?"

Jo stared back at Dean and smiled. He's clearly drunk, she thought as she set down her beer on the counter. Wasted, even. She looked into Dean's face which, despite years of tiny scars from monster attacks and alcoholism, looked just as gorgeous as the day she'd first laid eyes on it and had hoped that she could one day have him, and now she could. But it was all wrong. Okay, so maybe she hadn't let Dean talk it through with her, but he was almost certainly with Sam. And probably not just as "brothers with benefits," or whatever they would call it, either, at least, judging by the look Sam was shooting them from across the room, like he was going to either throw up or come over and kill the both of them himself. If she did this, she'd be nothing more than Dean's drunken mistake, the bitch that got between him and Sam. She leaned in and grabbed Dean's face with her hands, moving in slowly as if to kiss him and he closed his eyes and waited for the contact. She'd meant to fuck with him, a little payback for all the years he'd fucked with her, figuring that he would back off at the last minute, but he clearly wasn't going to and so she was the one to pull back at the last possible second. Okay, so he and Sam were going to have a lot to talk about when this hunt was over, but it wasn't going to be about how Dean had fucked her tonight.

"No." Dean pulled back and eyed her up, looking surprised and a little hurt. "Sweetheart, if this is our last night on Earth, then I'm going to spend it with a little thing I call 'self-respect.'" With that, she grinned, shook her head, and walked away, leaving Dean looking wounded and embarrassed.

.

As Jo brought her face closer to Dean's Sam nearly felt like he was going to jump out of his chair. Were they really about to make-out right in front on him? His face contorted in a look of fury and pain as he watched Dean close his eyes and his and Jo's noses bump into each other as their lips came closer and closer to touching.

"Aww, dammit!" Bobby's low voice brought Sam's attention momentarily from the kitchen and over to the corner of the living room where Bobby had finally turned away from the ham radio and was casting his eyes back and forth from Sam's face to the kitchen and back again. He then watched as the aging man moved his chair faster than he'd ever seen over to a nearby closet, grab an old camera and stand, and begin setting it up. When Sam looked over to the kitchen again, Jo was laughing and walking away from a pretty embarrassed-looking Dean and Sam wondered what he'd missed.

Bobby's voice suddenly filled the room as he called out to everyone. "Everybody get in here! Time for the line-up. Usual suspects in the corner."

Sam stood up and miserably made his way to the corner of the room for Bobby's strange distraction. Ellen was the next to join him, looking drunk and still smiling, apparently completely unaware of what had just happened.

"Come on, Bobby; no one want to have their picture taken."

"Here, here!" Sam rejoined.

As Bobby kept messing around with the dials on the camera, Sam heard him grumble, "shut-up; you're drinking my beer."

Dean swaggered into the room and gave Sam a drunken, flirtatious grin right before he put one arm around him and the other around Jo and he barely restrained himself from ripping off Dean's arm and clubbing him with it as they all lined up in the corner.

"Besides," Bobby joked as he began backing up away from the camera and towards the group, "I'm gonna need something to remember your sorry asses by."

Ellen laughed. "Always good to have an optimist around."

Beside him Sam felt Castiel swaying slightly as he had a hand clapped on his shoulder. "Bobby's right. Tomorrow we hunt the Devil. This is our last night on Earth."

A few seconds later, the bulb went off and everyone parted, no one wanting to see how the picture turned out. Castiel and Ellen went back to the kitchen and began doing shots once again, this time with much more gusto on Ellen's behalf. Dean removed his arms from Sam and Jo and then turned to Jo to say something when Bobby stopped him.

"Dean, I could use your help with this damn ham radio. Get over here and help me, would ya?"

"Sure thing, Bobby."

Dean walked past everyone and knelt down in front of the radio and Bobby joined him, not daring to take another look at Sam's pained face.

About a half hour later, Dean passed out drunk on Bobby's sofa. Jo watched as Sam sat by his brother, rolled him onto his side, covered him up with the un-itchiest blanket he could find, and then watched him sleep. After about a minute though, he made eye-contact with her and saw that she was watching them and he sighed, turned away, and went upstairs to bed.


	23. Running With the Devil

Dean woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible thirst clawing at his throat and a horrible pain beating against the inside of his skull. Instinctively he reached over to grab Sam but his hand found no blankets, bed, or hard, muscular body beside him. As he grasped at the air he wondered where the hell Sam was, only to realize that he didn't know where he himself was. It took his eyes a minute to focus before he saw Bobby's old, peeling wallpaper and remembered where they were spending the night. He was on the couch. The lights were out and no one was in the room with him. Dean floundered about in the blanket for a moment until he was finally able to throw it off of him and check his watch. It was 6:19 A.M. How long had he been asleep? However long it was, it didn't feel like long enough. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wake himself up enough to stumble up the stairs. Damn, he had a lot to drink last night. It was that stupid shots game Jo had come up with. Wait a minute, Jo…oh, shit. Shame and embarrassment overwhelmed him as the events from just a few hours ago came flooding into his consciousness. Although he'd never tried a long-term relationship before, he had never thought of himself as a cheater. Sam must be furious. Well, except that he didn't exactly cheat…although it was no thanks to him. What a stupid idea that had been, as if things with Jo weren't weird enough after what had happened yesterday afternoon.

A wave of nausea overcame him as he tried to sit upright. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his thighs, and held his aching head in his hands. He was in no shape for a confrontation with Sam at the moment, but he also felt the need to try and make it upstairs to him for the rest of the morning until they would all have to stumble out of bed, take two aspirin and maybe a couple Vicodin with their morning coffees, and head out to hunt the damn devil. Sam would forgive him and he could fix things up with Jo later.

.

Jo let out a low, pained moan as Dean stood in front of a row of shelves nearby and fiddled with a small radio. To say the hunt wasn't going well would have been the understatement of the century. Hellhounds had them trapped inside a hardware store with no known way out and Sam and Ellen were in the middle of trying to use cotton balls, a blood bucket, and bandages to patch up a gaping wound in Jo's side. She shouldn't have run back to him when that nasty hellhound pushed him down onto the ground. He'd felt the son of a bitch's breath on his ear and its tongue lapping at his jugular, getting ready to bite down right before she had blasted it full of rock salt. If she'd just run and not let herself get in the way then, hell yes it would have been a painful death and he'd be back in Hell right at that very moment, but at least she'd still be okay and he would've gone down swinging.

Without a hospital, she only had a couple of hours to live, three or four if she was lucky. Sam insisted they leave the hunt and find the quickest way out of town and get her to the hospital, but Dean, for one, still wanted to take their shot at the Devil while they had the chance. They all went in knowing the risk. Jo was lying there injured because she knew how important it was to stop the Devil. It's what he would've wanted Sam to do if the hellhounds had gotten to him instead and he was the one dying or lying dead in the street. But, apparently, he was the only one who thought that way; the look Sam had given him when he'd suggested it, like he didn't even recognize him anymore, had made Dean change his plans rather quickly.

Unfortunately, they were surrounded and the demons had cut off the town's phone and satellite signals, so they couldn't even call Bobby for help. While Sam and Ellen tended to Jo, however, Dean had found a radio in the shop and used it to get through to Bobby. There wasn't much Bobby could suggest for their escape, but he had managed to tell him where to find the Dean clicked off the radio, he looked over at Sam, who was busy redressing Jo's already blood-soaked bandage. His hands and the very tips of his jacket sleeves were completely soaked in blood. He wiped them off with a clean cloth, then reached up and gently stroked Jo's hair and sweat-drenched forehead with his fingertips and made quiet shushing noises while she moaned in pain. Her face was chalky white, her lips were deathly pale, and she was shivering. Dean heard him murmur 'It's gonna be okay, Jo,' and nearly knocked over a row of shelves in his rage over how far from the truth that really was.

"Sam." Sam looked up at him. "I need to see you for a second."

Sam nodded and rose from his squatting position beside Jo to walk over to the front door where Dean had gone to stay out of earshot of Ellen and Jo.

Sam put his hands in his pockets, looked at him and sighed. "Jo can't feel her legs."

Dean grimaced. "I don't have much better news. Bobby thinks that the Devil's here to work some sort of spell to get Death, as in one of the four horsemen, up here."

"Wow. Okay. Did Bobby say anything about how to stop him?"

"Therein lies some slightly better news. The ritual has to be performed at a site where there was great carnage."

"The Battle of Carthage." Sam shook his head and blew a hard breath from his mouth. "Okay, so we just need to find that farm where it happened."

Dean, who had been looking forward to being the know-it-all for a change, shot his brother an exasperated look. "Dude, you're like a friggin' walking encyclopedia. Who just knows about that?"

"Early American History, freshman year at Stanford." A couple of seconds later, he added, "shut-up" as Dean slowly shook his head at him in disapproval.

"Anyway, the ritual has to be performed at midnight, so now we know where the Devil's going to be, we know when, and we have the Colt."

Sam sighed. "Yeah. We just have to get past…eight or so hellhounds and get to the farm by midnight."

"Yeah, and that's after we get Jo and Ellen the hell outta town."

They both looked over at Jo, who was looking paler by the minute and then looked back at each other. Sam cocked his head to the side. "It's not gonna be easy."

"Stretcher?"

Sam nodded. "I'll see what we got."

They turned from each other and were about to start scouring the store for supplies when Jo's voice stopped them. "Stop. Guys, stop. Can we, uh, can we be realistic about this, please?"

Dean saw his own dread reflected in his brother's face. They both knew what was coming next: she knew she was dying. Maybe she even had a shorter time left than they'd anticipated. He expected her to tell them that she couldn't leave town, or that she didn't want to be moved. What he didn't expect was for her to come up with a truly gruesome death for herself by asking them to build a bomb just to give them a few minutes' head start from the surrounding hellhounds.

"No!" Ellen wailed, her eyes brimming over with tears. "I won't let you."

"This is why we're here, right? If I can get us a shot on the Devil," she looked right at him, staring him in the eye. "Dean, we have to take it."

Dean looked away from her and down at the floor and fought back tears as he only then realized just how alike he and Jo were. Like him, she had walked into this hunt expecting to die and decided that when she was injured enough to slow everyone down that she was going to go down fighting. And she was just as stubborn as he, so there was no talking her out of it. But he also knew she was right. They didn't have another plan, and without this they would probably be dead the minute their feet touched ground outside of the salt line. He and Sam both turned from Ellen, who had begun to out-and-out bawl, to dry-eyed Jo and Dean hated himself for his growing willingness to go through with the plan.

.

Sam was knelt down next to Jo firmly gripping her right hand between both of his and staring at her, clearly trying to communicate with a look everything he either couldn't or didn't want to say. _I love you. Thank you. Good-bye._ Dean finished attaching the wires to the propane tank and backed up towards Jo and Sam. As he approached, Sam took one hand off of Jo's, rested it on her shoulder, let her hand gently drop, and gave her one last soulful, puppy-dog look before he got up and stepped back, allowing Dean to take his place beside her.

"Okay. This is it." He tried a reassuringly smile. "Guess I'll see you on the other side. Probably sooner rather than later."

Her returning grin was as fake as his as she handed him her shot gun. "Make it later."

He took the rifle from her and set it aside, then lifted her arm with one hand and placed the doorbell detonator he'd made into her palm with the other. He firmly gripped her hand with both of his own, staring down at their hands as he lightly massaged the back of hers with his thumb. After a few seconds hesitation, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to look into Jo's face and found her looking at him with nothing but love in her eyes and he couldn't help but smile. After everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, from her walking in on him and Sam, to being hit-on while he was drunk, to even basically dying in his place, she showed no signs of anger, bitterness, or disgust. His eyes shone, shouting out his thoughts loud and clear: You're incredible. I love you and I'm so proud of you. She looked as if she was near to breaking apart as her eyes widened and she smiled sadly at him. I know. I love you, too. Bye, Dean. He leaned forward, gently cupped her face in his hands, closed his eyes, and tenderly kissed her on her cold, clammy, sweaty forehead. When he pulled back and looked into her eyes again, he nearly fell apart from the terror he saw within them. He wished he could protect her, the girl who felt like the sister he'd never had, but now it was too late. He lightly stroked her face with his thumbs and laid a chaste, closed-mouth kiss to her lips, then pulled back and rested their foreheads together for a moment until he could pull together what little reserves he had left to jerk back from her, stand up, and walk away.

Ellen sat down where he had just been. Jo nodded her head to say goodbye, but Ellen just smiled and shook her head. "Mom, no."

Ellen smiled. "Someone's gotta let 'em in. And like you said, you're not movin'."

Dean saw his brother cast him a horrified look. This wasn't part of the plan.

"You got me, Jo," she went on as Jo simultaneously cried openly and smiled, "and you're right; this is important. But I will not leave you here alone."

Sam continued to stare at his brother in horror. "Dean."

He said it like a warning, as a way of saying, _no way in hell are we actually going through with this, say something!_

"Get going now, boys."

Ellen sounded pretty confident in her choice, but Sam was right. They couldn't just be willing to sacrifice people left and right for their own ends. Jo was shortening her misery and that he could deal with. Ellen was just committing suicide.

"Ellen –"

Jo's body gave a sudden, painful twitch and Ellen watched her child piteously, clearly unwilling to leave her. "I said go."

Sam grimaced at him, but Dean just looked down at the floor. Jo was as good as gone. Ellen would not be moved. That was their life right now and there was no changing that. Sam had to know that too, but he was just looking for Dean to find some sort of magical words to make it all better, like when he was seven. But this wasn't something as simple as a skinned knee and there were no magical words to be said. Sam looked down at the ground, clenched his jaw, and shuffled along across the room and towards the back door and Dean fell in line behind him. Just as they turned away, Ellen's called from behind them.

"And Dean?" He turned. "Kick it in the ass. Don't miss."

Dean nodded. Sam looked like he was about to cry and Dean was almost there himself. As they headed out the door, Dean placed a reassuring hand on his back. Sam turned to face him and, although they had to hurry, Dean took the time to wipe a single tear that had escaped from Sam's eye before they turned and ran up the fire escape and onto the roof as fast as they could to get away before the explosion.

The second their feet touched ground, a loud _kaboom_ sounded from behind them and they both jumped and turned around to find the little hardware store completely engulfed in flames. Gone. They were gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

"Dean!"

Sam's voice brought him back to the present and they ran as fast as they could towards the farm. They got there in only a matter of minutes and as they looked out from the trees, they saw about three dozen men standing in front of Lucifer, who had his back turned towards them as he used a shovel to throw heaps of newly overturned, dark earth into a filling pit.

"Guess we know what happened to some of the town's people," Dean whispered.

"Okay. Last words?"

"Nah, I think I'm good."

"Me too."

Their eyes met for a moment of silent communication of shared love and goodbyes. Dean pulled out the Colt. "Well, here goes nothing." With that, he cocked the gun and they ran out to face the Devil.

.

Dean's mind felt hazy and unfocused when he awoke, but he was single-minded enough to understand what he needed to do. He immediately sat straight up, ignoring the shooting pains in his head, neck, and shoulder, and began to frantically grab at the space around him. The Colt wasn't in his hands, he must have dropped it. It just had to happen at the worst possible second, too; right when they were about to go out to kill the friggin' Devil. It had to be on the ground somewhere that was…made of cotton sheets? Wait a minute. Where was the grass? And why did the air suddenly smell like medical supplies? Another second later, he realized he wasn't wearing pants. And why did his skin feel oily and sticky? The inside of his mouth felt coated in grime and had a bad taste. He opened his eyes, not realizing that they had been closed. The neutral gray wallpaper, the trash bins with the "Biohazard" stickers on them, the uncomfortable bed that he suddenly realized he was laying on, and the crappy twelve-inch television in front of him told him that he could only be in one place.

"Hey, hey, Dean, calm down, it's gonna be okay."

Sam. Sam was here. He felt familiar, large, warm hands pushing down on his chest and he allowed himself to fall back into bed and close his eyes. He felt Sam's finger gently trace up along the side of his neck and around his ear, then back down to travel the same path again.

"Thank God you're awake."

"How long was I out?"

"Three days."

Dean shot his eyes open and tried to turn onto his side to look at Sam, but was once again greeted with a horrible pain that shot through his body. He winced and stifled a moan.

"Don't move, Dean."

Dean rolled flat onto his back and opened his eyes to see Sam standing above him. His hair was disheveled and greasy as hell, his skin was oily, and he was still wearing the same clothes he had had on when they had gone out to hunt the Devil, apparently three days ago.

"You look like shit."

Sam laughed. "Thanks. Right back at ya, by the way."

"Dude, you reek. Have you showered?"

"I wanted to be here when you woke up. The doctor said…" He got a distant look on his face and trailed off.

"What happened?" Sam pruned his face up into a look that told him everything and Dean's face fell. "It didn't work, did it?"

There was a knock at the door as the doctor, a tall, broad-shouldered, African American man dressed in a lab coat, navy blue dress pants, and white sneakers, entered the room. He walked over to the foot of his bed, picked up his medical chart, and began flipping through it.

"Mr. James Page?"

Dean grinned. Nice, Sammy; checking him in under one of his favorite names. "Please, call me Jimmy."

"Alright, Jimmy. I'm Doctor Hoffman. Well, I have got to tell you, you are one lucky man. Not everyone can just come back from a cerebral edema. Luckily, when you fractured your skull it actually helped some of the excess fluid around your brain to leak out, preventing almost instantaneous death from cerebral ischemia." He walked around to the side of the bed, pulled a small flashlight from out of his lab coat, and shined it into Dean's eyes. "But, you still do have a severe concussion," he turned the flashlight off, put it back into his lab coat, looked down at the chart, and began making little notes as he spoke, "a skull fracture above your left parietal lobe, a compound fracture of the clavicle, and three simple fractures in your left humerus." He looked up at the computerized monitors beside Dean's bed, where his vitals were being recorded and then jotted down a few more notes. "I hope the next time you decide to ride a motorcycle you'll wear a helmet. If your brother here and the gentleman in the trench coat hadn't found you when they did and you weren't close to the hospital, it would have turned out very differently. Like I said, you're one lucky man."

Dean smiled bitterly. "Yeah. Lucky. That's me. So, when can I leave?"

Doctor Hoffman finally looked up from his note-taking and shot Dean a rather surprised look. "Well, you just woke up from a coma not more than an hour ago and some of your vitals will require monitoring until they're back to normal."

"Just give it to me straight, doc."

"Best case scenario, probably two or three days, as long as you remain stable, experience no more black-outs, and your blood pressure returns to normal. Now, I have to ask you, what's the last thing you remember?"

"Uh…" He blinked a few times. "I was riding down the road on my bike, you know, nothing special…"

"I already talked to him a little about it," Sam piped up, "and it seems there's at least a few minutes towards the end that he doesn't remember."

The doctor nodded. "I was afraid of as much. Memory loss is a pretty common occurrence for patients who have experienced this kind of trauma." He looked up at Sam. "Let me know if you notice any other gaps in his memory; it's imperative that we know as much as possible so we can treat him properly. In the meantime, now that he's awake, I'll call the nurse and make sure he gets a good dose of pain medication to make him comfortable through the night. You also might want to consider going home and getting some rest. We'll take good care of him while you're gone."

Sam nodded. "Okay, sure, maybe I will. Thanks, doc."

As soon as the doctor was out of the room, Dean turned to Sam."What's the real story? How'd I get this way?"

"Lucifer threw you into a tree after you shot him."

"After I shot him? What, did I miss?"

"No, you got him right between the eyes. Wait a minute, what's the last thing you remember?"

Dean searched his brain. "I, uh, we were in the woods, about to get the jump on Lucifer and I was holding the Colt. What do you mean after I shot him?"

Sam sighed and shook his head. "There are, apparently, five things in all creation that gun can't kill, and he just happens to be one of them."

Dean groaned. "Crowley. That son of a bitch. He gave us the gun, knowing it wouldn't work and knowing that we'd come after him and hand the Devil's vessel over to him."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, well, he didn't get me."

"Yeah, about that, how did we get away?"

"Cas escaped from wherever Lucifer was keeping him and got us out of there. Brought you here, and thank God." He pulled up a chair as close to the bed as he could and sat down. "Doctors said if it had been a few more minutes longer, you would've…" He shook his head and looked at Dean with that damn puppy-dog look. "I can't lose you Dean, not now."

Dean rolled his eyes. Did the kid have to be so damn dramatic? "You're not gonna lose me. Now come on, let's go so we can gank that mother Crowley for sending us out on a suicide mission."

He moved to get up, but Sam pushed him down forcefully. His body hit the bed and a horrible pain shot through his head, neck, back, shoulder, and arm. "No Dean! Look at you! Didn't I just say I'm not willing to lose you? You have to stay."

"Sam, I don't have time to just hang out in a hospital. The apocalypse is happening now, and that means we gotta get out of here and get back on the trail to hunting the Devil."

Sam stood up and stared down at him with such fury that Dean was convinced that, despite his injuries, the man was going to hit him. Instead, he quickly leaned down and kissed Dean hard on the mouth. Sam's breath was definitely not the freshest; he'd clearly been sitting by Dean's bed for the entire three days he was out, not even bothering to brush his teeth, comb his hair, or probably eat. Dean kissed him back anyway. Sam moved his lips desperately, as if he was afraid that he would never touch him again, just like he had when he'd kissed him at the bar when he was drunk. When he pulled back, he was breathless.

"You're such an asshole, Dean." He rubbed his thumb over Dean's lips. "I thought, God, I thought, I'd never, never…" His mouth descended upon Dean's again, kissing him so hard that their teeth clinked together more than once. Sam hands roved over Dean's hair, cheeks, and chin as he kissed him, as if he was trying to memorize every small feature by touch. "Don't fucking, don't…just stay, okay?" And this time, his tongue dove as far into Dean's mouth as he could, as if trying to memorize his taste, too.

Dean grabbed his head and pushed him back and Sam looked into his face with pleading eyes. "Okay Sam, fine. I won't leave. Happy?"

Sam nodded and smiled. "Very."


	24. Nobody's Fault But Mine

Six days, fifteen stitches, three dozen check-ups, five fights with the hospital staff, and one head bandage, collar bone bandage, cast, and arm sling later, Dean was released from the hospital. When the staff announced his release, Sam left the hospital for long enough to run to Bobby's and bring back a fresh change of clothes for Dean; a long-sleeved, navy blue, button down shirt and Dean's favorite pair of faded blue jeans. Although he seemed to be overjoyed to finally get out of the hospital gown, as they crossed the parking lot towards the Impala with Dean's head bandaged and his arm in a cast and a sling, his attitude was as surly as ever.

"Friggin' Nurse Ratchet. Did she have to wheel me out in a damned wheelchair?"

"It's just hospital policy, Dean."

"Yeah, but still, would have liked to at least retain some of my dignity while I was there by getting to walk out on my own. They woke me up every half hour to poke and prod me in places, the food was awful, and don't even get me started on the hospital gowns!"

Sam let out an exasperated sigh but still couldn't help but smirk a little at his brother's theatrics. "Okay, I won't."

"I swear, those bastards are sadistic with how thin and," Dean moved his hands back and forth, vaguely gesturing at the air, "open they are."

"Alright, I get it. The hospital wasn't the five-star hotel you expected. Jeez, you'd think you'd never been in a hospital before."

"Yeah, well, I don't usually let them keep me there for that long." Dean stopped walking and pointed at him. "You owe me."

Sam grinned, showing all his teeth. "Oh really? Okay, what do you want?"

Dean reached behind him with his good arm and firmly grabbed Sam's ass. "What do you think?"

Dean's ever-changing attitude towards him in the last few weeks, ranging from enthusiastic and sometimes almost predatory to outright angry rejection, was making Sam's head swim a little. He stopped walking and looked at Dean and then raised an eyebrow, his face full of surprise, and smiled. "Yeah?"

Dean smirked and nodded. "Oh, Hell yeah."

He looked forward and began walking once again. "Huh. And I would have thought pizza and beer."

"Well, that too. And pie."

A laugh tore itself out of Sam's throat as he opened the door to the Impala and climbed into the driver's seat. "Of course, how could I forget the pie?"

Dean looked at the car, then at his sling, and frowned. "A month, Sam. A fucking month, I can't drive thanks to this thing."

Sam just couldn't stop grinning at how Dean was complaining like a whiny kid. Eventually it was going to get annoying, but at the moment it was a little adorable. "Come on, it won't be that bad. I'll make sure you forget all about it tonight."

.

They ran back to Bobby's to say good-bye and then packed up their things and left to check-in at a near-by motel room. Several hours later as they sat beside each other in bed, Dean was propped up on four pillows while he repeatedly stuck his fork into a white bakery box with enthusiasm and downed mouthfuls of apple pie. He rested the box on his lap to take a swig of his beer that was resting on the nightstand next to his painkillers and sighed contentedly. "Nothing like pizza, pie, porter, and Percocet, eh Sammy?"

Sam, who was sitting up on the left side of the bed and flipping through the channels, nodded absently. He was glad Dean was out of the hospital, but at the moment he was also a little busy obsessing over what had happened a couple of weeks ago between him and Jo. Despite the crazy chain of events following that night, the image of Dean and Jo standing in the kitchen bumping noses and about to lock lips was lodged in his brain, even if only in the back of it as he dealt with more immediately pressing matters, like running from hellhounds or bandaging up Jo. His obsessing had hit a peak during those three days when Dean was out cold, as Sam had had little to do except stare at him, pray to a god who he knew wouldn't answer for Dean to just wake up, and think, and during that time he'd hit some hard conclusions. He found it hard to believe that Dean had gone after Jo merely because he wanted her so badly. After all, if he'd wanted to hit that, he'd had years to do it and yet never once did. Jo was like a little sister to them and even though she was attractive he was pretty sure that Dean had never really wanted to go there. Was this all part of some epic freak-out over his homosexuality? Or did he really miss being with women that badly? Was he just so hard-up for one that night that he had no longer cared who he was hitting on? Or was it something else? Was it him? Maybe he wasn't good enough in bed? Sam was still pretty new to being with a guy so he knew he couldn't be the greatest at pleasuring Dean just yet, but whenever they were together Dean still always seemed to have a pretty good time. Maybe it was his looks. Was he not Dean's type? Too muscular, maybe? Or was it because he had their mother's eyes? When Dean looked at him, what did he see? Thinking about all the possible reasons why he wasn't enough for Dean could, and was, slowly driving him insane.

"Dean?"

Dean grinned at him. "Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam looked into his eyes for a moment and then looked away and swallowed hard. "Nothing."

He wasn't going to ruin Dean's good mood by asking. After all, they'd both just lost Ellen and Jo and he could already tell by Dean's suicidal desire to run out of the hospital and try to hunt the Devil with no weapons, that he was taking it pretty hard. Whether it was something they eventually needed to discuss or not, now was probably too soon. If he was being honest with himself though, it was more than that. Whatever Dean's reasons were for wanting to have something on the side, he wasn't sure if he was ready to know them or why he wasn't enough to keep his lover satisfied.

Dean took one last bite of pie then set the box down on the floor and gave Sam a lecherous smirk. "So, about that sex…"

Sam turned so that he was kneeling on the bed in front of Dean and kissed him softly on the mouth. "I was thinking something."

"What is it?"

"Well, you can't move your arm and I don't want to hurt you. Maybe I could top tonight? I could throw your leg over my shoulder and all you'd have to do is lay there and I could do all the work."

Dean shook his head. "Pass."

"Why?"

Sam couldn't help but feel a little disappointed over Dean's refusal to bottom. It wasn't that he didn't like bottoming, but he really wanted to know what it was like to top Dean and he already knew from having read Dean's thoughts in Chuck's story that he often fantasized about trying it out with him. He was pretty sure that if he was willing to give it a chance that they would both enjoy it.

"Because I've been thinking about the way your ass feels so tight around my dick since I woke up in the hospital. I mean, even now just thinking about it is making me hard."

Dean was clearly trying to distract him so he wouldn't fight about it. And good God was it working. An involuntarily moan escaped Sam's lips, sending a small, embarrassed flush to his cheeks, and which only seemed to spurn Dean on. He grabbed the front of Sam's shirt bringing him in closer, and then swiped his hot, wet tongue along a vein in Sam's throat.

"You want that, huh? Like thinking about it?"

He nipped at Sam's jaw near his chin and then began laying kisses and nips along Sam's jawline, moving his mouth towards his ear. Sam eyes fluttered closed and he tilted his head back.

"Yeah."

He loved how often Dean was beginning to use words to get him aroused. Sam's shyness usually kept him feeling awkward and stupid whenever he tried to do it himself outside of things sometimes blurted out in the heat of the moment during sex, but hearing his partner talk dirty to him had always been a secret kink of his and the filthier Dean got, the harder Sam always became. Maybe that was why Dean went after Jo, because he was bored with his shyness? Then Dean grazed his teeth along his neck behind his ear and Sam grabbed him around the waist and lost his train of thought. Dean took one of Sam's hands and rested it on the crotch of his jeans and his own cock twitched at the feeling of the hot, hard flesh he found there underneath the layers of cotton and denim.

Dean put his lips near Sam's ear and growled. "You feel how hard you make me? Mm, I'm gonna fuck you so hard 'til you can't move, can't breathe, can't do anything except scream my name."

Sam shivered as he felt the hot condensation from Dean's breath on his ear. He turned his head so he could take his lover's mouth in a hard, forceful kiss and then began rubbing his hand over Dean's overheated, hard cock. They sat there moaning and plunging their tongues into each other's hot, wet mouths until Sam pulled away from the kiss and took his hand off of Dean long enough to climb on top of him, straddling his legs with his own, and then once again attached their mouths. He began unbuttoning Dean's shirt, moving slowly and gently so as not to hurt him and when he was finished he pulled it away gingerly from his collar bone, where the tape from the fresh bandage there was still sticking a little to the fabric and then removed it, careful to move Dean's arm as little as possible when pulling the shirt off. He drew his mouth down to Dean's chest and flicked his tongue against one of his erect nipples. He'd been looking forward to this moment all day. With everything they'd been through lately, he wanted nothing more than to be close to Dean, holding him, feeling him move beneath him, and breathing in his scent just to remind him that his lover was really alive and they were together.

"How do you want to do this?"

"Like this."

Dean moved his arm out of the sling, grabbed Sam's waist with both hands, and pushed him to encourage him to spin around, wincing in pain as he moved his arm. Sam quickly did as requested, so he was on his knees and facing the door. From behind him he felt Dean shift his weight on the bed and heard the sound of a belt being unfastened, quickly followed by zipping and the quick swooshing of moving fabric. The nightstand drawer was hastily opened and closed and then Dean was behind him with his bare chest, stomach, and pelvis pushing at his backside as he reached around him and one-handedly undid the button and zipper of his jeans. He then scooted back and shoved Sam's pants and boxers down so they pooled around his knees. While Sam was still reeling from this sudden and uncharacteristic urgency coming from Dean, he felt the unexpected intrusion of a well-lubed up finger entering his hole.

"You're really trying to rush this, aren't you?"

"Sam, I haven't had sex or jacked off in ten days, so, yeah, I want to get to the main event. Sue me."

Right at that moment a second finger was added and before Sam was ready, a third. He hissed from the pain of being stretched but Dean kept going as if he hadn't noticed. He moved his fingers in a steady back and forth motion, mimicking what he was clearly already fantasizing about doing with his cock in just a few minutes. The feeling of slight pain mixed with pleasure brought on by the blunt thrusting of Dean's fingers was a little thrilling, but he longed for the feeling of roving tongues and hands and taking the time to really enjoy each other's bodies. Dean withdrew his fingers and then the bottle made a noise as it was squeezed, followed by a wet, rubbing sound. Sam turned his head to watch Dean touch himself. His pants were also pulled down to his knees and he was still wearing his socks as he hurriedly ran his good hand up and down his shaft, the other back in its sling.

"You want me to do that?"

"I got it. Eyes forward."

Sam frowned but did as instructed. He'd been thinking about being with Dean all day, imagining the both of them in various positions and states of undress, but in all of his fantasies, this wasn't quite how he'd imagined it. In the few times before that they'd had sex, it had been them undressing each other and then, licking, nibbling, stroking, and sucking each other into a frenzy before they finally jumped into the sex, feeling half-crazed with lust. This wasn't as fun. He felt a sudden sharp pain in his ass as, without warning, Dean shoved himself inside, leaving Sam to feel himself both clenching and stretching around the entire cock suddenly inside his ass. Sam made a pained face and inhaled sharply.

"Shit, you're tight. Try to relax."

Sam really would have liked to argue that he might have had a chance to relax if he hadn't suddenly been hit with almost eight inches in his ass but, pain or no, he really didn't want to turn this into a fight. Instead he stayed perfectly still and was glad that Dean did the same as he slowly adjusted to the girth inside of him. After about thirty seconds, Dean started moving slowly, barely moving his hips, but before long he was picking up the pace and moving a bit rougher, using his good arm to pull Sam's hips towards him as he slid in and out. Sam remembered the last time they'd had sex in this position almost two weeks ago back at that hotel that had hosted the Supernatural convention. That time Dean had been draped over him while he held on to him and kissed his back and neck. He had felt so connected to him then. Now Dean felt as if he was a hundred miles away.

"Dean, just touch me, please."

Clearly misunderstanding him, Dean reached around, wrapped his hand around Sam's cock, and begun tugging it enthusiastically. Although it wasn't what he was looking for, the way Dean pleasured him with his hand felt amazing, especially since he'd been so worried about him that he'd also neglected himself for the past ten days. He began rocking his hips in time with Dean's movements so that when he thrust forward he was thrusting into Dean's hand and when he moved back he felt his ass come into contact with his pubic hair and felt his balls swing backward and hit Dean's. Dean began shifting the angle of his thrusts.

"C'mon, where are you," he heard him growl. Then Sam felt Dean's cock brush his prostate and he let out a yell. "Yahtzee," Dean said, sounding a little smug.

Dean began pulling out as far as he comfortably could with his arm reaching around him like it was and hit his prostate with every thrust. Sam felt intense pleasure mixed with some pain as Dean continued to get rougher with his movements, which was starting to kick-start his adrenaline and added to his enjoyment.

"Aahh, Dean, God, oh God!"

"That's it," Dean's voice growled into his ear, "let it go! Fuck Sam, come on, come!"

"Oh god, yes, yes, I love you, Dean!"

With those words he finally came, spilling all over Dean's hand and the bed as his intense orgasm ripped through his body. Dean removed his hand from his dick and began driving into him with extra might. He wasn't gentle and he wasn't kind to Sam's ass as he grunted and moaned, shoving himself forcefully into Sam over and over. Then, with a loud shout that sounded like it might have been an attempt at forming Sam's name, he climaxed and Sam felt the familiar hotness of his release filling him. As soon as Dean was finished he stopped moving and relaxed against Sam's body.

"Shit," he mumbled. "I fucking needed that."

Sam hissed in pain as Dean slid his softening cock from his ass. He moved to try and lay down on his back but when his ass throbbed in pain decided to try to sleep on his side for the night instead.

"I guess you did."

He moved carefully and lay down on his side facing Dean, who was turned away from him and pulling his boxers and jeans back up. After he was fully dressed, he got up and walked over to the dresser where they were keeping their medical kit, opened it up, and pulled out the bottle of whiskey. Sam watched him open up the bottle, take a swig, then head over to the bed, throw the lid onto the nightstand, and finally sit back down on the bed and start taking sips from the bottle.

"Uh, Dean?"

"Huh?" He turned to Sam and eyed up his concerned face. "Oh, yeah. Thanks, that was really good." He then clapped Sam on the shoulder before turning back away from him and continuing to drink.

Thanks? As Dean's come began running out of his ass while his brother was already fully dressed and thanking him like he was some two-bit whore giving him a freebie, Sam felt something that he hadn't since the last time he'd had sex with Ruby; used. Sam turned over and lay on his other side, facing away from Dean, ignored the pain in his ass and closed his eyes.

"Goodnight, Dean," he barely whispered.

"Night, Sam," he heard Dean say to his back.

.

The next morning Sam woke up to find Dean laid out on the bed next to him, passed out drunk and reeking of whiskey. He watched him sleep for a moment and then soothed his hand over Dean's cheek, frowned, and sighed. Ignoring the protests of his ass, Sam got up, shucked off his clothes, and headed for the shower. When he got back into the room Dean was still out cold, so he decided to get dressed and head out to grab them both breakfast. Dean would need something extra greasy to help with his hangover. As he walked back into the room from grabbing their food from a little diner across the street, he saw Dean sitting up on the bed, popping two more Percocet and then holding his head.

"Morning, Sunshine," he boomed, grinning mischievously.

"Ugh, God, shut-up."

"Hey, got ya something."

Dean looked over at him with interest. "What?"

"Two extra greasy, cholesterol-filled, artery clogging, heart-stopping egg and cheese croissants with extra bacon," he crossed the room and handed him the bag, "and a coffee."

He shifted around the coffee holder he was carrying to show Dean his coffee and Dean took both enthusiastically. "Yes, and yes. God Sam," he set down the coffee on the nightstand and the bag on the bed and rubbed his eyes. "You sure know how to treat a man."

Sam smiled and then walked over to the desk to eat his breakfast, which was too messy to eat on the bed; a short stack of pancakes with fresh fruit. Dean took a swig of his coffee, then popped the lid and cradled the cup between his legs. He picked up the whiskey bottle from the floor beside the bed, poured a couple of shots worth into it, and took a few more sips, then more whiskey, more sips. After the coffee was alcoholic enough to be to his liking, he put the lid back on and ripped open the bag, took out one of the croissant sandwiches, and took a big bite. He downed the bite with another big swig of coffee and another Percocet. Sam stopped mid-bite and watched him with increasing concern. Dean saw his look, tipped his coffee, and grinned.

"Breakfast of Champions, Sammy."

Sam sighed and put down his fork. "Are we gonna talk about this?"

Dean's grin widened. "Talk about what?"

Sam gestured in the air towards him. "This."

"What Sammy, it's just a little whiskey in the coffee. No hangover remedy like hair of the dog, right?"

"It's not just that. The pills –"

"I was prescribed those for pain!"

"Were you prescribed to take 10 of them in twelve hours? With whiskey? I'm pretty sure that's not on the label."

"I'm fine Sam."

"Yeah? What about last night?" Dean looked down and took another big bite of his sandwich. "Look Dean, I know what you're doing. You're putting this big emotional wall up because of Ellen and Jo, but you've got to stop."

Sam, that's enough! I'm in no mood. And don't you dare talk about Ellen and Jo."

"I cared about them too, Dean."

"Do I need to eat my breakfast in the bathroom? Because I will if you don't shut the hell up!"

Sam looked down and stuck his fork back into the short stack and pushed his chair back, no longer feeling hungry.


	25. A High Stakes Game

Dean was prescribed a month's supply of Percocet but ran out after only two weeks. That led to them going to a shady-looking neighborhood where Dean walked into a house carrying nothing and ran out with a brown paper bag tucked under his arm. Sam never asked what was in the bag. Truthfully, that incident was just added to his growing list of things about Dean that he didn't want to know the reason for. Other than that unsettling outing and a few trips to other motels and diners, they moved around very little. Most mornings Sam went out jogging and then worked out in their room so he could stay fit during their time of not hunting while Dean slept for a few hours. In the evenings he usually went onto his laptop to look for demonic omens while Dean reliably sat nearby, quietly drinking and watching TV. A couple of times they went out to the bar where Sam hustled pool and soon learned that, even injured and drunk, Dean could still hustle with the best of them. Sometimes they had sex. Dean was never as rough with him as he had been the first night after he'd gotten out of the hospital, but the sex still felt unemotional and detached, like they were just two men using each other to get off and any effort made by Sam to make it a little more intimate usually went ignored. He knew not to take it personally; well, at least, not entirely. Dean was always like this when he grieved. Still, his behavior worried and frustrated him enough that when their dad's old friend Martin called their dad's phone with a job just a couple of days after the last of Dean's bandages finally came off, he leapt at the opportunity. He asked Martin for his location and said that they'd be there in the morning without first asking what they were hunting, how many people it had hurt, or if they needed to pick up any special items to kill it, then shut his phone, raced back to their motel, and burst into the room to tell Dean the news.

"It's about time!" Dean grumbled at him from where he was sitting on the bed. "I'm hungry as hell. Did you get my cheeseburger?"

Sam crossed the room and handed him the white take-out box he was holding. "Listen, I think I have a job for us."

Dean set the box down on the bed and looked up at him. "Great, what is it?"

"Well I just got a call from one of Dad's old friends. Do you remember Martin?"

Dean looked thoughtful. "Martin, Martin…wait a – is that the one with all that shit that went down in Albuquerque?" He shook his head. "Poor bastard."

"Yeah, well, he says he found something and he needs our help hunting it."

"Wait a minute. Didn't Martin check himself into a mental institution, like, eight months ago? Did he get out?"

Sam hesitated. "Not exactly."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no."

"What?"

"What? I'm not going into a nut house is what!"

"Come on, you were just saying that you're tired of just sitting around. This is something for us to do."

"Find something else. I don't want some shrink trying to psychoanalyze me while we're there."

"He's an old friend of Dad's and he's saved Dad's ass more times than we can count, it's the least we could do for him. And they won't psychoanalyze you. We'll just do the job and the minute we're done, we'll leave. It shouldn't take us more than a couple of days."

Dean kept opening his mouth like he wanted to argue, but Sam could tell he was relenting. Finally he threw his hands up in the air as a gesture of defeat and made a sour face. "What are we even going to tell them to make them wanna check us in?"

Sam shrugged. "The truth?"

"What? You mean we should just waltz in there and tell them about the apocalypse?"

"Come on, think about it, Dean. It takes a lot less time and it's gonna sound way crazier than anything we could come up with on our own."

Dean cocked his head to the side and thought about it for a moment, then sucked in his cheeks a little and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

.

Goddamn, was Sam ever right; the doc was already sizing Sam up for a big-and-tall straitjacket the minute he first mentioned the apocalypse. By the time the shrink called his receptionist to ask her to cancel his lunch, Dean was being shot a warning glare from Sam because of the ear-to-ear grin he was sporting. Alright, so messing with the shrink was kinda fun. Of course though, things became a lot less fun about ten minutes later when the nurse doing his physical had taken his blood pressure and then skipped the flirting and buying him dinner before making him pull down his pants and then jamming her finger in his ass. Unfortunately, even that had been the highlight of the visit compared to what came next with Sam trying to psychoanalyze him about his feelings over Ellen and Jo. What the hell? Okay, so he was willing to admit that things had been a little bumpy over the past month, but with everything that had happened, what else could he do? He knew if Sam had his way that the two of them would sit down with a box of tissues and cry about the whole thing while watching _Steel Magnolias_ , but it wasn't his style. Ellen and Jo were gone and yeah, it was horrible, a fucking tragedy even, but how was sitting around and crying into his Haagen-Dazs going to help? He had a job to do. Just because he'd failed Ellen and Jo by not killing the Devil, that didn't give him the right to fall to pieces. And it certainly didn't give Sam a right to try and initiate some kind of therapy session with him. Besides, things were kind of normal between them. They still went out. He could still kick Sam's ass at pool with one hand tied behind his back. They were even having sex on a somewhat regular basis and he made sure Sam got off every time. So he didn't really see what Sam's deal was all of a sudden.

Still, as he sat in the rec room and stewed over the doc splitting him and Sam up in the group therapy sessions, he thought that Sam trying to psychoanalyze him was way better than having a bunch of stuck-up, lab coat wearing know-it-alls trying to do it. What did he mean that his and Sam's relationship was 'dangerously co-dependent?' Yeah, Sam was his whole world, sure, but that was different. They were…they were… _SamandDean_. They really were; most people had stopped bothering to take a breath between their names years ago. They were always referred to in the plural and if one of them was someplace without the other one hanging out nearby, people always became wildly concerned. It was never strange or unhealthy. It just _was_.

Alright, thinking about this stuff was just starting to make some unpleasantness that he'd been successfully repressing come back up and he needed to distract himself right now. He got up from his chair and in no time found a boxed checkers game, set it up, and was sitting there happily playing against himself when an attractive brunette in a lab coat who looked to be in her late thirties came up behind him and announced that she was his doctor. Great, they'd just gotten there and it was already time to have his grapefruit examined. He eyed her up and saw a cocky, predatory look in her eyes that reminded him a lot of himself. Well then, maybe he could keep her distracted by flirting with her for long enough to keep her from going all Good Will Hunting on him.

He shot her a self-assured smirk. "You're my shrink? Well, lucky me."

She smiled amusedly at him. "And you're my…" She opened her file. "Paranoid schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis." His eyes widened; that was a long list of crazy. She shut the file, looked down at him, and raised an eyebrow. "Lucky me."

He tried to maintain the smile but her response caught him off-guard and his face fell noticeably. Shot down in flames; well, that was the end of Plan A.

"Can we talk?" she asked as she pulled out the empty chair on the other side of the table from him.

He sat up straight and crossed his arms. Alright, down to business, then. He wasn't going to let this shrink into his melon, but he could still interview her for the case. First he just needed to take control of the conversation. "Yes. Actually I have some questions for you."

She sat down and stared levelly at him while maintaining her amused smile. "What a coincidence; I've got some for you, too."

He smirked confidently at her. "Well then, quid pro quo, Clarice," he said, moving his lips like Hannibal in _Silence of the Lambs_.

Her smile widened. "Okay, Hannibal; I'll go first."

Much to his relief, she asked him questions that were easy to answer and, okay, that maybe he answered a little exaggeratedly just for fun. How many drinks did he have in a week? Lately that number had been significantly elevated, so a lot. He wasn't sure exactly how much, but mid-fifties sounded crazy enough to make her happy. How many hours of sleep did he get a night? Counting being passed out drunk, probably four or five, but that sounded much less dramatic than three or four every couple of nights. When was the last time he'd been in a relationship longer than two months? Never. That one was true; he'd officially been with Sam just a week shy of that. He grinned and kept going until she broke out something that he, for some reason, was unprepared for.

"So, let's talk about your father."

Dean knew from the way her eyes lit up that his mask had slipped long enough for her to know that she'd struck psychological gold. "Why?"

"Honestly? I've never had a patient with such self-destructive behaviors like yours without having had a pretty traumatic childhood."

He slapped his smirk firmly back in place. She was eyeing him up, looking for confirmation of her statement and he realized that this was a game of psychological poker; he couldn't let her see his cards. Because he really, really didn't want to sit with anyone and talk about his crappy childhood, let alone some shrink in a nuthouse. "Is that so?"

Her smile stayed confident but there was an edge of sympathy in her voice as she spoke. "That's so. And, judging by the look you gave me when I said the word 'father,' I'm not too far off the mark. I know it might be hard to talk about it, but I promise you'll feel better once you do. I'm here to help you, Eddie and I promise that everything you say will stay between us. Did your father ever hit you or touch you in places where you didn't want to be touched?"

"What? No!"

"Okay. It says in your file that you have a brother named Alex?"

"Yeah." This time around he and Sam were Eddie and Alex Van Halen, his idea, of course; he liked the idea of posing as two kick-ass rockers who really were brothers.

"Did your dad ever hurt or tou –"

"No!" Dean cut her off right away. How could she even say that? He could handle the abuse accusations; after all, she hadn't known their father and she also wasn't the first to assume there had been some sort of at least sexual abuse going on in the house when he was a kid. Agent Hendrickson had even taunted them about it once as he and Sam sat handcuffed to each other in a prison cell a couple of years ago. But how could this woman even hint that he would let something like that happen to Sam? "Our dad never abused us!"

She smiled wide. "Sounds like no one messes with your brother on your watch."

He leaned back in his chair. "Something like that. Speaking of which, he's probably going to be getting out of his therapy session soon, so I'd better get going."

She lifted her arm off the table and pulled back her sleeve to show a small, dainty-looking gold watch. "He won't be out for a while yet." She set her arm back down on the table and leaned in. "Okay, how about this," she gestured to the board between them, "you and me, we'll play for stakes."

Dean raised a brow. That sounded interesting. "What are the stakes?"

"Every time I take one of your pieces off the board or get kinged, you have to answer one question I ask with absolute honesty, but if you do the same then I don't get to ask a question and if you win the game then I won't make you do any more therapy sessions with me. I'll just sign your sheet saying you did your time and that will be that."

He eyed her up distrustfully. "Can't you get fired for that?"

Her grin went as wide as the Cheshire cat from _Alice in Wonderland_. "Somehow, I'm not worried."

He considered his options. He was pretty good at checkers; he and Sam had played it a lot when they were stuck in any number of crappy motel rooms as kids and although he wondered what made her so confident, it wasn't like she had spare checkers hidden up her sleeve or anything. Besides, playing a game sounded a lot more fun than just the two of them staring uncomfortably at each other while she tried to force him to answer questions. He cleared the checkers off the board, giving her all the red pieces while he took the black. After they had their pieces set up, she let him go first. He slid one of his pieces from the front row and looked up at her.

"So, it's Erica, right? Why did you decide to work in a loony bin?"

She moved her piece and looked at him with that same amused smile. "Mental Health Facility. And, I do it because I like helping people."

He moved his piece. "That sounds kind of flimsy."

"Well, why do you like going out and killing monsters?"

He grinned and shrugged. Okay, so she had a point. "Because I like helping people."

She looked down at the board and creased her brow in concentration for a moment before moving her piece. He could see what she was trying to do with lining up her pieces in a cluster like that; very good, but he was pretty sure he could still jump one of her pieces in a few moves. He moved one of his pieces and looked up expectantly at her. She moved one of hers and they continued to play as they talked.

"What I do is rewarding. Sometimes people really do get better and they can leave here and have a full life because of me. It's a pretty good feeling."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

He jumped one of her pieces and took it off the board, then looked up at her and grinned with childish glee. She laughed and shook her head. "Not bad, Eddie."

Two moves later, she managed to double jump him and move one of her pieces to the other side of the board. She smiled smugly. "Okay, so that's two jumps and a king, I think you owe me the answer to three questions."

He grumbled as he moved another piece. "What do you wanna know?"

"What was your relationship like with your father growing up?"

"Umm," He twisted his lips and chewed the inside of his mouth for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to lie, but in the end decided to go with the truth; after all, she was willing to do something that could get her fired if he won. He cleared his throat. "As a kid I kind of felt like he was some sort of action hero, you know? I spent a lot of time trying to be just like him. I dressed like him, listened to his music, even wore an old ring of his. He's even the reason I became interested in cars; I asked him to teach me how to work on them just so I could spend some time with the guy. But, ah, other than that, weapons training, and giving out orders, he just kind of left me alone."

"Do you think your father was ever proud of you?"

"No."

"What about Alex? How was he with him?"

"He and Dad were always butting heads. Sometimes I think he disagreed with him just to disagree. Dad wanted him to learn bow hunting, he wanted to play soccer. Dad wanted him to come home right after school to do combat training, he signed up for the school play so he'd have to stay after and rehearse. Dad wanted him to stick with the family and keep hunting, he wanted to go away to college. Dad wanted him to come along on a hunt, he wanted to stay in the room, but if he didn't want him to come along on a hunt, then you couldn't keep him away." He stopped himself, realizing that he was starting to rant. "You know, that kind of thing."

She nodded and looked back down at the board, waiting for him to make his move. He waited for a moment before moving his piece; answering questions sucked. He began studying the board with each move, considering every possible move she could make that might take out one of his pieces if he wasn't careful enough, but in just six more moves she took another one of his pieces off the board.

"Do you resent Alex for always getting so much more attention than you because you think your father loved him more?"

He hesitated. "That feels an awful lot like two questions."

She smiled sweetly. "It's not."

"Well, first of all, I don't resent my brother. I'm proud of him. He's always known what he wants, and he goes out and gets it. He stood up to Dad when he was wrong and he wasn't afraid. I wish I could've…" He stared resolutely down at the checkered pattern on the board. "My dad saw me for what I was and him too. He's a survivor. When I'm gone, he'll find…" _Someone else_. He shut his mouth and looked down at the board. _He'll find everything he wants_.

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "You think you love him more than he loves you. And you think you deserve to be loved less."

He moved his piece, plastered on his cocky smile, and looked up at her. "That's a second question."

She looked down at the board, furrowed her brows together, and bit her lip in concentration as they continued to play. As the game continued, Dean had never known that a game of checkers could get so aggressively competitive. He was determined to get a free pass to those therapy sessions and, from the look on her face, she was equally committed to get to ask him the next question that was burning on the tip of her tongue. Over the next several turns he managed to jump one, two, three of her pieces and when he finally got one of his checkers over to the back of her board, he slapped it down triumphantly.

"King me!"

She smirked as she put another checker on top of his. "Game's not over yet, Eddie." With that, she moved her king in a way that he hadn't planned for and managed to triple jump him. "You shouldn't have been so focused on that one piece."

Dean rolled his eyes and waited for her to voice the last thing she'd said about love as a question. She leaned forward and looked at him until he met her eyes and then she sat there and held his gaze for several seconds before she spoke. "Are you involved in a sexual relationship with your brother?"

His eyes widened as he continued to stare, transfixed and searching her eyes for answers. How did she know? Did everyone just know? "Yes."

"Do you think your brother really wants that?"

"I…I don't know. He says he does, but sometimes…" He clenched his jaw. "I think it's what he wants right now." _Until he wises up_ , he thought.

"And how do you think your father would feel about your relationship?"

"I think," his voice cracked and he paused and cleared his throat. "I think he would hate me. And I think he would have a hard time keeping himself from beating me. He'd probably say that I helped raise my brother and that he didn't raise me to be…" _A child molester, queer, sexual deviant, user_.

She nodded. "Let's explore that." She gestured to the board. "It's your move."

.

An hour later, Dean walked with his head down, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched as he headed down the hallway towards the room where Sam would soon be getting out of his group therapy session.

"Dean, hey!"

Dean turned around to look at his brother, who was eyeing him up with increasing concern. "You okay?"

"I just got thraped. So no, I am not okay. Tell me you found something."

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, guy says he saw the creature." He shrugged. "We should talk to him. Wanna meet back here in an hour?"

"Yeah, sooner we take care of this thing, the sooner we can get gone; this place gives me the creeps."

Dean turned to rush back to his room for the next hour when he found himself suddenly face-to-face with a very attractive brunette woman, who looked to be in her late twenties. She smiled seductively at him, grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in for a kiss. Dean's first thought was, _what the hell?_ Seriously, in all his life he had never encountered anything like this. Then a second thought entered his head; _dad's sending her to me as a test. No. That was crazy. I should kiss her back, it's what Dad would want._ His lips began moving against hers. _No, this doesn't feel right. I don't want to kiss her; I want to kiss Sam._ His shrink's voice then added to the cacophony in his head; _do you really think your brother wants that?_ No. How could he? Look at how fucked up he was, for God's sake! The words swirled around in his head as she continued to kiss him; _Dad, brothers, fag, love, want, proud, Sam, mine._

Finally she broke the kiss. "Hi."

"Hi," he said, still reeling from what just happened.

"I'm Wendy."

"Oh."

She gave him a lusty smirk and then slapped him on the ass as she walked away. Dean turned to face Sam and realized instantly that he'd made a mistake. Sam's face was calm, but it was a show for the other patients standing further down the hallway. His eyes said it all; he was beyond angry. In fact, he looked more jealous than he'd ever seen him in his life. Dean smiled happily. Sam really did want him. He shifted his eyes back to the retreating woman and then back to Sam, making a little show of it.

"Maybe this place isn't so bad after all."

"Dude, you cannot hit that." He still wasn't screaming, but the message was clear; if Dean went after her, it was all over between them.

Dean smirked and then shifted his eyes once again from Sam to the girl and back again and feigned a pained face. "Oh, so torn."

"Um, you know what? We should probably head to my room for a little bit; I have something to show you."

Sam grabbed his arm and tugged at him and Dean realized that even if he didn't want to go anywhere with Sam, he didn't have much of a choice. He grinned at Sam and shrugged.

"Sure Sam; let's go."

They walked down the hallway, away from the other patients and as soon as they were out of view of any people, Sam pushed Dean into a nearby closet, slammed the door behind them, shoved Dean against the wall, and took his lips in a crushing kiss so hard that Dean's head slammed against the wall from the force of it. He was feeling the power of Sam's anger and pain coming at him with enough might that it left his head aching and his lips throbbing and bruised.

"What the fuck, Dean? What do you think you're doing? First Jo and now this? Will you just go for any random slut who's willing to give you some pussy?"

"Hey! She kissed me! And Jo wasn't a slut or willing to give me pussy!"

"You're right Dean, she wasn't, and that only makes it worse! Damn it, you're supposed to be mine!" He moved his mouth down and bit Dean hard on the collar bone, definitely hard enough to leave a mark, and he was now rethinking his choice of trying to make Sam overly jealous because his brother was starting to scare him a little.

Sam grabbed him by the shirtfront and shook him. "Why Dean? Just fucking tell me why!"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't I enough for you?"

Dean's eyes widened in shock. That was really what he thought? "Sam…"

"Am I not good-looking enough for you? Do I suck in bed? Just tell me what it is!"

"Sam, no, that's not it. You're gorgeous and you're…" _the best lover I've ever had,_ "an amazing fuck."

"Then what is it? Is it because I'm your brother? Is it because I'm a guy? What is so horrible about me that you have to go off and try to bang someone else?"

"I…" He grabbed Sam's arms and wrenched them off his shirt. "Jesus Sam, fine! Yeah, that shit bothers me, okay? There, I said it, are you happy?"

Sam's hurt look immediately had Dean wishing he could reach out, grab his last words in mid-air, and shove them back into his mouth. "Well, I have news for you, Dean; I'm a guy and I'm your brother and neither of those things is going to change. I want you, but I don't want to force you into something you don't want. If you don't want this…" Sam turned his head and used one of his hands to wipe a stray tear from his cheek. "Just think about it and tell me what you want to do, okay? I'll go out and find something I can turn into a lock pick and meet back up with you in an hour."

With that, Sam pushed out of the room, leaving Dean still up against the wall and staring after him in shock.


	26. A Beautiful Mind

Several hours after Sam's sudden outburst, Dean lay in bed craving a nice, big, bottle of whiskey. Too bad the admitting staff had checked him and Sam over so thoroughly that they hadn't even managed to sneak in so much as a vial of holy water. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep without some kind of alcohol in his system, so instead he put his hands behind his back, stared at the greyish-white ceiling, and thought about the events of earlier that evening.

After Sam had stormed out of the supply closet, leaving him with his lips and collar bone all bitten and bruised to Hell, he'd stayed in the closet for a long time rubbing his sore spots and trying to blank his thoughts before finally returning to his room. Sam didn't come to the room to meet him after an hour like they had agreed upon and it wasn't until about seven hours later at 8:00 P.M. that he had brusquely and unceremoniously burst in, looking resigned and angry. Dean had seen his face and immediately prepared himself for the coming heart-to-heart, but Sam had just turned heel and walked out, leaving him to follow.

Sam had been visibly angry and hadn't talked the whole night. They hadn't exactly needed to talk to each other though, either; they didn't need to discuss a plan to know what they had to do. Dean had stood guard outside one of the empty patient rooms while Sam ripped open the mattress and wrenched a bedspring free to use as a lock pick. They hadn't had much time to break into Ted's room to interview him about the monster before lights out at 9:00. But Sam had taken forever getting the bedspring and by the time he'd come out of the room the nurses were already making their evening rounds. Unfortunately, as they headed down the corridor to their witness's room they'd heard a scream. The monster had beaten them there. By the time Sam finished fumbling with the bedspring, Ted was already dead, hanging by a pipe with a bed sheet firmly wrapped around his neck. Sam grunted and angrily threw the bedspring to the floor. Dean took a step back from him. Sam had already had a few angry outbursts today and it was making him unpredictable. Dean picked up the bedspring, shoved it into his hospital robe and then stepped out of the room. Sam had followed, then looked down at the floor, clenched his jaw, and marched away from him. Dean had stared after him for a few seconds until he heard the sound of light footsteps coming towards him from down the hall and then he'd too taken off.

And now, minutes later as he lay in bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what just happened, not to mention Sam's sudden, uncharacteristic behavior, his mind wandered to their dad. Without wanting to, he pictured the way Dad would no doubt be scowling at him if he knew about what had been going on between his sons in the dark. Dean pictured the disapproval in his eyes and then felt a familiar pain in his chest, the one he always got when their dad looked at him that way. _Never good enough, you'll never be good enough,_ it sang to him over and over again, as if it was some sort of personal mantra. No. He firmly shut his eyes and tried to change the picture in his head. He thought about the way the skin around Dad's eyes used to wrinkle whenever he smiled. In an instant, he was inside a memory from when he was eleven and his dad had come through the door while smiling ear-to-ear over a successful hunt, but his smile had faded the minute he'd seen the broken salt line behind the front door because his 'irresponsible son' had forgotten to re-salt it after he'd gone out to get him and Sam dinner. Overwhelming shame and feelings of worthlessness crashed over him anew as he remembered the yelling lecture he'd received that night. He forcibly shoved the memory away and once again changed the picture. He thought about the look of pride in Dad's eyes the first time Dean had changed out the Impala's rotors all by himself and the way his warm, reassuring hand felt on his back whenever he did especially well at target practice. Then he unwillingly thought of time Sam had come home late from school and Dad had been too busy yelling at him to watch him hit the bullseye with his crossbow and he'd just stood there holding the bow to his side and nearly wanting to cry for attention as the two of them ripped into each other. A few seconds later he'd had to put down the weapon and get between the two of them before they started throwing punches and then they'd gone inside, the unnoticed arrow still quivering in the target. As his mind went through this litany of scattered and painful memories, his father's voice, which despite years of separation had only gotten louder in his head over time, was barking out the same order in his head over and over again, just as he'd heard it thousands of times in the past, in at least a half dozen different ways; _"Watch out for Sammy. Look out for your little brother, boy! Always be sure to keep Sammy safe. Take care of your brother while I'm gone. Don't let Sammy out of your sight, and that's an order!"_

His most important job always had been, always would be to take care of Sammy and at the moment he was really sucking at it. He flinched as he remembered the hurt and insecurity in Sam's voice when he'd asked him why he wasn't enough for him. He was still a little stunned that that was what Sam thought the problem was. Did the kid ever look at himself in a mirror? Didn't he see how fuckable he was? Or did he really not notice how hard he made him all the time? Hell, when they hadn't had sex in a while, all Sam had to do was finger a fucking straw while they were out at a diner and Dean was ready to throw him into the backseat of the Impala and fuck him in front of dozens of shocked patrons. Didn't he see how much he loved it when he touched him, or how hard he almost always made him come? _You shouldn't have fucked him in the first place,_ a voice in his head supplied. _What, you want something and you just go and take it now? Are you really that selfish?_ He thought about Sam's words while they were in the closet; _Dammit, you're supposed to be mine_! Was he really supposed to be Sam's? Where were they supposed to go from here? It felt like he was left with a hundred options and every one of them was wrong. He continued to stare at the ceiling and think about it until the corners of his vision went black as exhaustion overcame him.

He blinked at the blurriness in his eyes and when the fog cleared, the inky, navy blue night sky was in front of him. Below that, the dashed white lines of a road shimmered before him as the flecks of reflective white paint shone underneath the Impala's bright headlights. He looked over to his left and saw the dark silhouette of dozens of evergreen trees standing out against the bluish night sky. To his right, Sam was sitting in the passenger's seat and smiling serenely at the road in front of them. He remembered this; this was exactly how everything looked on the night they drove to the hardware store to get supplies to build the curse box for that psycho, choke-happy ghost nearly two months ago. Shit, he must have fallen asleep. The sound of crashing waves filled his ears as his heart began to beat ferociously against his ribcage. He'd had this dream before. And he knew what was coming. His hands gripped the wheel with extra might as he tried to turn it to the left and turn the car around but it was no use; no matter how hard he jerked at the wheel, gripping so hard that he twisted the skin on his hands until they were three shades of red and white, the wheel stayed firmly in place and the car didn't even do so much as swerve. He took his hands off the wheel and car began to drive itself, the brake pedal being pressed down without his help as the vehicle steered itself around a corner and headed for the center of town. Dean shivered from fear.

"Sammy!" He snapped his fingers in front of his brother, who continued to look forward as if he couldn't see or hear him. "Hey, Sam! Come on man!" He shook him by the shoulders. "Listen to me! When this car parks itself, do not go outside, do you hear me? Stay in the car!"

Sam turned his head towards him, still wearing that same smile, and put his hand on Dean's knee, rubbing his forefinger over a worn spot on his jeans, and Dean sunk back miserably in his seat. He looked down at his knee and watched Sam's fingers slide over the denim. He used to enjoy this memory of Sam shyly touching him in the car on the first night they had agreed to be together but now several large, silent tears began to fall from his eyes, staining his face, and he pounded the wheel in frustration as every second of Sam's caresses brought them closer to their destination. Sure enough, in no time the car was slowing down in front of a small hardware store on the main street of Montrose, Colorado. The car parked itself and shut off its engine, the keys turning without Dean even touching them. Sam opened the passenger's side door.

"No, Sam! Stay inside!"

Dean lunged for him, but it was no use. His hands found no purchase, his fingers merely touching air as Sam stood up and slammed his car door behind him and then, right on cue, his own door slowly swung itself open as if beckoning him outside. This wasn't the hardware store they had gone to that night, but he'd already known that it wouldn't be. He still recognized the building but Sam obviously didn't as he headed towards the front door, laughing and quietly shoving at an invisible person beside him. Dean launched himself from the car and ran after Sam as fast as he could.

"Sam, please! Whatever you do, don't go inside!"

It was too late; Sam's tall, broad-shouldered frame was already disappearing through the doorway and Dean's legs, disobedient to his own commands, began to follow him. He tried willing his feet to stay firmly planted on the ground but his feet merely tripped over themselves as he continued to move forward and then his unwilling hand reached out, grabbed the door, and pulled it open and he and his still resisting feet tripped themselves inside.

The store was laid out in front of him just as he remembered it from Carthage, Missouri, complete with Jo bleeding on the floor with two useless legs stretched out in front of her. Unlike that time though, she and Ellen were tied together with thick ropes and bomb wires. Sam was standing behind them, dressed in a white suit and wearing a look of superiority as his eyes leveled on Dean. The wires circling the two women ended with the little homemade doorbell detonator. Sam was proudly holding it up to him with his right hand, caressing the button with his thumb as if it was a long-lost lover. Dean clenched his fists and his face contorted in rage.

"Get out of him, you evil son of a bitch!"

Sam's meat-suit laughed. "I don't think so, Dean; your brother said 'yes.' He's mine, now."

From down on the floor, Ellen looked at him with pleading eyes. "Kick it in the ass, Dean; don't miss."

The tears began to once again pour down Dean's face, not just one or two, but dozens of them, silently streaking down his face and staining it with their salty moisture. "I'm so sorry, Ellen," he rasped, his voice breaking on her name.

"Oh Dean." From inside of Sam, Lucifer pulled the puppet strings to make his brother shake his head in mock sympathy and Dean looked up at him with a start. He'd never spoken to him after Ellen in his dream before. "I know this is hard, but have you considered that maybe," he shrugged, "you just suck at everything?"

"Why, Sammy?" He knew this was a dream Sam and not the real thing, but he couldn't help himself because there really existed a scenario where Sam would let Lucifer wear him like the tacky suit he had on and, dammit, he wanted some fucking answers. "Why did you say 'yes'?"

Lucifer cocked his head to the side as if listening to something that no one else could hear and then grinned and nodded his head. "I'm not wasting my time by giving you Sam's answer on that; you already know."

With that, he pushed the doorbell and he, Ellen, and Jo all disappeared in a fireball before him.

"Sam!"

Dean shot up in bed, panting heavily and covered in sweat. He looked around at the bare walls of his room and then closed his eyes, slumped his shoulders, and took several deep breaths. Once he'd calmed down a bit, he scrubbed a hand over his face. Although he hated to admit it, Dream-Lucifer was right about a couple of things. First, he did suck at everything. He failed at everything, let people down, and got them killed. He'd gotten Sam killed at least once and was responsible for their dad's and Ellen and Jo's deaths by their dying in his place. He'd broken the first seal, hadn't been able to stop Sam from breaking the last seal, shot Lucifer but couldn't gank him, and now he was pushing Sam towards saying 'yes' to the devil. He swung his legs off the bed and sat up. He could only remember a handful of times before tonight when Sam had been so openly hostile towards him and he knew that the angry tension between them was all his fault. Sam had to be acting this way because of that Wendy chick. Well, okay, so it wasn't just her; it was her, and Jo, and probably every girl he'd flirted with or checked out since they'd first gotten together. The Wendy chick was probably just the last straw. And in reality he supposed that he couldn't really blame him because, although he'd never openly admit it, he knew that he would be insanely jealous too if Sam ever picked up some waitress's phone number while he was sitting right in front of him. On the outside of course he'd be patting Sam on the shoulder for proving to someone that he was a man and then tease him about calling her later, but on the inside he'd be fuming. But Sam was being forced to deal with even more from him than just flirting with other people; he was even taking it a few steps further by kissing them and that one night he was even willing to have sex with Jo. And why? To prove his manhood, to make a dead man, who had never given him attention, proud of him. He'd agreed to be only with Sam and by not sticking to it he was only hurting them both. Maybe nothing he did could stop Sam from becoming Lucifer's new prom dress, but he knew what he could do if he at least wanted to try. He and Sam couldn't keep going making the same mistakes over and over again. He needed to change things, tonight.

He got up and headed for the door. Using Sam's discarded bedspring it took him a few minutes to pick the lock so he could leave his room, but soon enough he was standing outside of Sam's room and using the make-shift lock pick to get inside. When he opened the door, Sam was lying on his back in bed. He was acting like he was asleep, but he could tell that he was also watching the door from out of the corner of his eye. The moment he stepped into the room, Sam swung his legs off the bed and he sat up, wide-eyed.

"Dean? What are you doing here?"

He shut the door behind him and took a couple of steps towards his brother. "I, ah…" Great start. He should have rehearsed; talking about relationships was never in his skill set. He gestured vaguely between them. "We…you know."

Sam's eyes lit up in recognition for a split second before he looked broodily down at the floor and sighed. "Oh."

Well, this was going well. Alright, screw this; he wasn't good at talking, but there was one thing he always knew how to do right. In a few quick strides he crossed the room, knelt down in front of Sam, and took his lips in an open-mouthed kiss. He felt Sam's body shudder in surprise and then he was closing his eyes, wrapping his arms around him, and kissing back. He took Sam's lower lip into his mouth and sucked and then Sam's lips stopped moving and he pushed on his chest.

"Dean, I can't keep going back and forth with you like this."

"I know. And I'm sorry, Sam. No more going back and forth, I promise. I'm yours."

He looked at Sam with pleading eyes. He meant it wholeheartedly; whatever this thing was between them, he was onboard for it for however long it was going to last. He knew he would never stop hearing the words of self-deprecation in his head, or stop feeling like he was letting down their dad by giving in to his need to be with Sam or by indulging in his own homosexual desires. He knew that one day Sam would get tired of him and leave, just like Dad, or the small number of women he'd been with and cared about, or Sam would die on him in some horrible fashion and leave him that way, just like Mom, Ellen, Jo, and countless others, but until then, he belonged to Sam. He wouldn't keep hurting his brother this way; he wouldn't make him go to the Devil by continuing to push him away. With all he'd done recently, he knew it would probably be a hard story to swallow but as Sam stared at him in a moment of silent communication, something in his eyes changed and he knew that Sam knew he meant it. And he believed him. Sam nodded and then swung his legs back onto the bed and held out two long arms, which Dean quickly crawled between. Sam laid down and Dean curled up beside him, lying in Sam's arms with his head to his brother's chest, listening to the beating of his racing heart, and then closed his eyes.

 _You're disgusting,_ a voice inside his head said.

 _Shut-up,_ he mentally shot back, _I'm not listening._


	27. One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

It felt like someone had cranked the heat in the room up to ninety degrees and he was lying right beside the heater. He threw the covers off of himself and was then a little startled when his hard pillow began to make noise.

"Mmph."

Dean reached around and found that his pillow was not only hard but tall, muscular, and sweaty as Hell. Shit. He hadn't meant to fall asleep while lying in Sam's bed last night; if any doctors or nurses walked in, they'd see a strange scene neither of them could explain. He lifted his head and saw that his drool had created a small wet spot on the chest of his brother's t-shirt. Sam snuffled sleepily, wrapped an arm around him, and rested his nose against the top of his head.

"Go back to sleep, Dean."

He looked up at Sam's sleepy, flushed face and then laid his head back down and closed his eyes, as instructed. Fuck anyone who came into the room; if he was really serious about his decision last night with Sam, then people were bound to find out about them. And he was serious, because things had to be this way if he wanted to keep his brother from running away from him and going to the Devil. So, he'd give Sam what he wanted: no more running or hiding what they had so other people would think he was straight. And no more chicks, either. Just Sam. Only, always and forever Sam. He closed his eyes, nuzzled Sam's chest, and gripped him a little tighter.

They spent the next hour in Sam's way too small bed cuddling and dozing until Dean was awakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock. It was probably one of the staff just coming in to wake them, but he shifted his weight so that he was a little more on top of Sam, just in case. Sam, who also heard the knob, jumped a little and moved to sit up but Dean stayed where he was and rubbed a soothing hand up and down his stomach. In response, he felt Sam stare at the back of his head as he first hesitated and then slowly lay back down. The door opened and in stepped the small, smiling, brunette nurse who had given both of them their physicals when they were first admitted. She happily bounced into the room while carrying a fresh white t-shirt and new pair of hospital scrub pants, but then she spotted the two of them and her smile faded.

"What are you doing?"

Dean tilted his head from where it lay on Sam's chest to shoot her an annoyed look. "Trying to sleep, if it's all the same to you."

She cocked her head to the side and resumed her friendly smile. "Aww, you two don't wanna be alone your first night in a new place, that's sweet." She paused and cocked her head and when she spoke again her voice was so high that it squeaked. "How did you get in here?"

"Look, you got somewhere to be? Because I'm kinda tired."

"Alright, sugar." She dropped the fresh clothes on his and Sam's feet. "This change of clothes is for Alex." Her eyes fell on him and then she beckoned her head towards the door. "Your clothes are probably already waiting for you in your room. Come on, we've got a big day ahead."

Well, she was right about that part, although their definition of a "big day" was no doubt vastly different from what she thought they'd be doing. They had to examine the latest victim's body, figure out what the hell was killing the patients, gank it, and with any luck be gone before sunrise. She walked over to the door, opened it, and then stared at him expectantly. He sighed and then sat up and kissed Sam on the forehead.

"Meet me for breakfast in an hour."

Sam furrowed his eyebrows together, his face a mixture of confusion and shock as he slowly nodded at him. "Okay."

With that, Dean got up, sauntered over to the door, and shot the nurse a cocky grin. She smiled back uncomfortably at him, clearly trying to piece together what she'd just seen.

.

Sam and Dean ran into each other in the hallway near the patient lounge as they both rushed to meet Martin. The man had his back to them, looking at some creepy-ass clown paintings hanging up on a bulletin board. He stepped back from the paintings and smiled when he saw them approach. "Sam, Dean, hey! How's it going?"

Sam jerked his head a little to the side and tossed some unruly, stray bangs out of his face. "Hey Martin, we just got back from looking at this creature's latest victim and we're hoping you can help us out."

Martin nodded and swallowed hard. "Well, ah, sure, I guess I could try. It's been a little while since I've h-h-hunted though, you know, so I'm probably a little rusty."

Dean sighed. This guy was really all they had to work with here? He once again made a mental note to kill Sam later for talking him into taking this case. "Well, it's just that this thing is…a little weird. I mean, Sam and I have never run across anything like this before."

"What do you mean?"

Sam sighed. "Alright, so we found this weird hole in the victim's neck that goes all the way through his brain and when we sawed open his skull we saw his brain was sucked completely dry. But that's all we know right now about how this thing attacks its victims because we didn't get a chance to do a full examination on the guy."

Martin creased his brow in concentration. "Why not?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Because the same nurse who threw me out of Sam's room this morning walked in on us examining the vic and made us go back to our rooms."

Sam's eyes opened wide in shock and alarm. He shifted his weight uncomfortably and gave Dean a warning look, but Dean just looked at Martin and pretended that he didn't notice. He wasn't hiding, not anymore. Martin, for his part, hadn't seemed to notice the silent interchange between the brothers. "Oh. So, you guys got up early this morning to talk about the case?"

"Swahh…" Sam gestured vaguely into the air and continued to give Dean that same helpless, wide-eyed stare.

Dean frowned and looked away, now regretting that he'd brought it up. "Not exactly."

Martin shifted his eyes from Sam's nervous face to Dean's embarrassed one and then back to Sam, then Dean, Sam, Dean. Dean could swear that he could actually hear the gears in the man's head turning until his face snapped into an open-mouthed look of shock mixed with a little disgust. "Oh! Did the nurse…I mean, was she okay?"

Dean scowled and looked down at the floor while Sam stared at the wall, smiled uncomfortably and let out a short, awkward laugh as a red flush crept up his neck and face. "We weren't doing anything; we were just sleeping."

"Oh." Martin shut his mouth, looked at the floor, and then nodded his head a little. When he looked up again, his face had changed to one of curiosity. "Did John know?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "We're still alive, so what do you think?"

"Well, I don't think he'd do _that_. I-I mean, he wouldn't have been happy…" He looked one more time between the two of them and then looked away, back to the bulletin and the creepy-ass clown paintings. "Let's talk about something else." He gestured towards the pictures. "So, the doc just hung these up on the patient artwork board today."

Dean chuckled. "Are those original Gacy's?"

Martin furrowed his brow, looking offended for the first time ever. "I painted those."

Sam broke into the conversation. "Back on point, please. So, this thing…"

And they were back to talking about the case. Dean was confused about Sam's warning glare. He wasn't hiding them anymore and that was what Sam wanted, wasn't it? But no one brought up the topic again and for that, Dean felt relieved.

.

Later that night as Dean and Martin made awkward small talk while they waited for Sam to return with silver weapons, Dean was finally starting to feel a little giddy over this hunt; he'd never hunted a wraith before. What's more, he'd never even heard of wraiths before, and what could be better than finding out that something existed and then killing it? Sometimes he still really loved his job. He was a little surprised that the thing turned out to be the head psychiatrist, Dr. Fuller, but Dean had seen that ugly bastard's real face in a mirror as it walked past, and Dean knew what he saw.

Sam turned the corner and headed towards them with a look of single-minded determination. He stepped between them and pulled three letter openers out from his loose-fitting robe. "Alright, I had to raid three nurse's stations for these. They're only silver-plated, but they should work." Reluctantly, Martin took the weapon and held it up as if he was examining some yet unimagined object.

Dean heard approaching footsteps and all three of them turned to see Wendy walking towards them with a predatory smile on her face. He scowled and shuffled his feet. "Oh no, no, not today sweetheart, come on, keep walking I –"

He was about to nod towards Sam and say, 'I'm with him,' but his sentence was cut short by Wendy grabbing a very confused-looking Sam and shoving him up against the wall. Sam shook his head from side-to-side as if he thought she had accidentally grabbed the wrong person before she grabbed his head and shoved her mouth on top of his. Sam inhaled sharply in surprise but didn't push her away. As Dean watched, his brows knitted together and his mouth fell open. What the fuck was this bitch doing, putting her hands and mouth on Sammy, his Sammy, but as she continued to go to town, Dean noticed that Sam's lips were tightly shut in a thin line. Sam opened his eyes and stared directly at him, looking both annoyed and miserable. He could tell Sam was making a point to stare at nothing but him as the kiss continued, silently communicating things with his eyes that his in-use mouth could not: _I'm not enjoying it and I'm not kissing her back. I don't want this._ She tried to shove her tongue in his mouth and Sam grimaced, pursed his lips together even tighter, puffed out his cheeks and shut his eyes in discomfort. Dean grinned in amusement.

She finally broke the kiss and cast a pair of intensely hungry eyes up at Sam, who merely nodded and twitched his face into a very awkward, polite smile. She then ran her hands down Sam's chest and turned her head to Dean. "I want him now; he's larger."

Dean caught the double meaning in her comment and instantly shut his mouth, feeling caught between insulted and amused. Yeah, Sam was a little… larger than him in that department, both in length and girth, but just because Sam was a big guy with freakishly large hands and feet, that didn't have to mean that he was bigger, or that what Dean had couldn't get the job done just as well. Wendy smirked at him, then ran her hand across Sam's chest, and walked away. Martin watched her for a moment and then slowly turned his head to Dean, looking as if his dearest wish at that moment was to spontaneously disappear into a cloud of mist.

In the meantime, Sam looked so confused that Dean nearly burst out laughing. Clearly, the best thing to do in this situation was to tease the hell outta him. He looked down the hallway, allowing his eyes to follow the retreating girl, then turned to Sam. "You've had worse," he joked. Sam just shot him the bitch face, and that made the whole night even better. Dean afforded himself one last smirk before they both turned to Martin, pretending to not notice the way his eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them as if he expected them to pull out pistols and face each other at dawn, and then Sam began to discuss the plan.

.

Dean jammed the bedspring into the lock of Sam's door, his fingers impatiently searching for the sharp groove inside that would pop it open. He finally found it after what felt like an eternity and opened the door to find his brother sitting on his bed with a glazed over expression and his mouth hanging open as he stared at the ceiling. Dean flinched; Sam looked so whacked out that he wondered if they'd given him shock therapy to control him, like poor Jack in _One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_. If they had, it was all his fault. They'd possibly hurt Sam and then thrown him into his room for attacking the doc, and why? Because he'd screwed up and misidentified the monster. After a few seconds of talking to Sam, however, his guilt gave way a little as he quickly learned that they had just given Sam a lot of drugs to keep him calm. And by a lot, he meant a whole, whole lot.

As they talked about the wraith, Sam kept fixing him with a soulful look so exaggerated that he looked more ready to start singing a very drunken, heartfelt rendition of "Shot Through the Heart" at a karaoke bar than have a serious conversation. He kept grabbing Dean's shoulder in a way that was no doubt meant to be comforting, but he was so off-balance even sitting up in bed that it felt like Sam's grip on him was the only thing keeping him upright.

"Hey, hey. Look at me." Reluctantly Dean lifted his head and saw Sam's eyes filling with unshed tears. "It's okay," he whispered. "Because you're my brother! And I still love ya!" He let go of Dean and lay back in bed, his eyes looking more watery than ever and his bottom lip trembling. And then Sam poked his nose and said, "Bop!" in a high voice and then leaned back and laughed and Dean had had enough.

"Alright then, glad you're okay." He nodded and then turned to leave but Sam once again grabbed him.

"Hey – hey – hey – hey!" Dean stooped forward as he was once again brought down to eye-level to Sam, who gave him a sloppy grin. "So…you wanna have sex?"

Dean stared at him with an incredulous expression and his lips slightly parted. "You can't even stand."

Sam looked confused. "Who said anything about standing? Look…" he scooted down and then lay back in bed. "Hey, hey, look, I can lay back and just let you do whatever, you know, whatever you want."

Whatever he wanted? He unconsciously licked his lips as he watched Sam reach down and begin to very sloppily stroke himself underneath his pants. "Sammy?"

Sam's eyes lit up excitedly as if he'd just discovered something. "You wanna – wanna ride my dick? I _really_ want you to do that."

Dean felt his pants get a little tighter, but he smirked and shook his head. "Dude, you are so high."

Sam pulled his hand out of his pants, and they tented noticeably. "Ah, come – come on. That…that…"

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "That?"

Sam looked back up at the ceiling and loudly broke out into song. "That's what you do with a drunken sailor, that's what you do with a drunken sailor, that's what you do with a drunken sailor, early in the –"

Dean nodded his head. "Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go."

He left his still happy and singing little brother and headed back to his room, where he laid down, pulled his pants down to his knees and quickly jerked himself off thinking about how Sam had looked as he touched himself a moment ago. After he came into a corner of his bed sheet, he pulled back up his pants, closed his eyes, and fell into an uneasy sleep.

.

"Dean! Come on, oh-six-hundred hours; time to get out of bed!"

Dean was startled awake by the loud boom of his father's voice. Immediately he jumped out of bed, his posture perfectly upright, and stood at attention awaiting his usual orders to make his bed and fix Sammy some breakfast before they had to get ready for school. He blinked at the bare gray walls and then remembered where he was. There was no one else in the room. Huh; must have been a dream. Dean stretched and looked at the clock on the wall. It really was six o'clock in the morning; the hospital staff wouldn't be coming around to wake him for breakfast for another two and a half hours. Except that he was awake now and there was no way he was staying in his room until then. For reasons that he couldn't quite understand, the room looked more menacing than it had the day before and he was even beginning to suspect that it had shrunk during the night while he'd slept. He briefly considered breaking back into Sam's room in the hopes of getting laid, but quickly decided against it. They had to find that damn wraith, gank it, and leave as soon as possible. If he went to Dr. Fuller's office he'd have a good two hours to look through his files without worrying about being disturbed. In that time he could probably look through most of the patient and staff records to see if anyone was admitted or hired around the time the attacks first started, which would help him narrow down their search. He'd break back into his room for the wake-up call at 8:30, then take a shower and go eat breakfast with Martin, since Sam would still be locked in his room after what happened last night, but after that he was on the case all day. After breakfast he was supposed to meet with that shrink Erica and sob on her couch for an hour, but no way in hell he was doing that. He grabbed his lock pick and headed for the door.

Minutes later as he searched through the files he thanked the universe's non-existent god that Fuller kept meticulous records of every patient and staff member who walked through the door. Unfortunately though, everything was organized alphabetically and not by how recent the patient or staff member was, so that meant a lot more digging than he was hoping he'd have to do with his limited time. He was in the middle of looking through the patient file for a paranoid schizophrenic named Alan Binsberger when his search was disturbed by one of the last sounds he'd ever expected to hear.

"Where's Sam?"

Dean dropped the file he was holding and it fell to the ground, papers scatting in every direction. He nervously glanced around the room. "Dad?"

Silence. He stood still and waited for five, ten, fifteen seconds to hear the voice again, but it didn't come back. Dean sighed and bent over to pick up the papers. Maybe this was a sign that he needed a little break from hunting. Maybe after this he and Sam should take a vacation for a couple of days and go to the beach, or Atlantic City.

Two hours into the search he was rooting through the Ts and had found one hundred and forty-three patients who'd been admitted and six staff members who'd been hired within the past six months, thirty-seven of which were still in the hospital. All of this was helpful, but it still didn't narrow things down enough for him to be able to just walk out, gank the thing, grab Sam, and leave. Not only that but he was out of time to look through the records and had to head back to his room before the doc showed up in his office wanting to know what he was doing there. With what had happened with Sam last night, he was pretty sure that he couldn't just yank down his pants and yell 'pudding!' for it to be overlooked this time. He put the file he'd been holding back into its drawer and got ready to leave.

"Dammit Dean, you're wasting time! This search would have gone a hell of a lot faster if you'd just brought your brother along!"

Dean jumped as he once again heard his father's voice fill the room, but another look around once more confirmed that he was alone. What the hell... A surge of fear gripped his heart, overwhelming and terrible. He bolted for the door, got to his room in record time, and jammed the lock pick, which by now he'd used enough for it to feel like a house key, inside the knob.

"Dean, honey? Did you have a nightmare?"

He stopped dead, furrowing his eyebrows and pouting his lips in confusion. _That voice._ He hadn't heard it in years, but it was there – soft, sweet, and unmistakable, just like the last time she'd used it…He turned his head to the left and then the right, but only found an empty hallway.

"Mom?"

Nothing. Unlike when he'd heard his father, Dean was filled with disappointment over the silence. He sighed and muttered, "I need some fucking sleep," as he pushed open the door.

.

Three hours later, Dean was running around the hospital trying to track down all the patients whose arrival fit the timeline of the attacks, but the voices were no longer allowing him to really focus on the case. Things only got worse when Erica suddenly caught up to him in the hall and asked him about their missed therapy session. He listened and rolled his eyes as she gave him her usual shtick about needing to go easier on himself and how he couldn't save everyone. He really liked this chick, but whether she believed it or not there was a brain-juice sucking wraith running around and he wasn't about to let it snack on another human while he was wasting his time being nice.

He was about to tell her where to shove her psychobabble bullshit when her face turned from sympathetic to cocky and her voice became harsh. "Hell, these days you can't save anyone, Dean."

He blinked at her. "What'd you say?"

"The truth, Dean. You got Ellen and Jo killed. You shot Lucifer, but you couldn't gank him. You couldn't stop Sam from killing Lillith, and-oh, yeah-you broke the first seal. All you do is fail. Did you really think that you, Dean Winchester, with a GED and a 'give 'em hell' attitude, were gonna beat the Devil?" She scoffed. "Please. The world is gonna burn and there's nothing you can do about it."

Terror once again gripped Dean as he realized she wasn't a doctor. She might not even be human. This whole time she'd been cozying up to him, asking him shit about how he felt and what he did, trying to act all sympathetic and ignorant of who he really was when she'd been playing him the whole time.

He raised his voice and took a step towards her in an attempt to intimidate. "Who are you? How do you know all that stuff?"

As he yelled at Erica, a nearby young male orderly asked him once, then twice to settle down. Finally, when she refused to answer, Dean turned to him. "Who is she?

"Who?"

"What are you, blind?" He jabbed his finger in her direction. "Her!"

"Pal, there's nobody there."

Nobody there. As he looked back at her, her calm demeanor and malevolent smile made her the most terrifying thing he'd seen in weeks. She was staring at him like she'd won something, like she had absolute control over him and there was nothing he could do to stop her. "I'm not real, Dean. I'm in your head...because you are going crazy." His eyes grew wider and he blinked. He could still see her, but from the way the orderly stared at him, he knew that he probably couldn't. "There's no escaping me," she said mockingly. "Because I'm inside you. I'm the part of you who knows the truth. You can't save the world. You can't save your friends. And you especially can't save your brother. Do you really think fucking him is going to keep him from saying 'yes' to Lucifer? You're more pathetic than I thought. Who would want someone as damaged as you? As weak? I mean, once you get past the pretty face all you are is a sloppy drunk with daddy issues."

Dean turned away and looked at the orderly. "Just leave me alone."

He powerwalked down the hall, away from the orderly and past several patients and staff, trying to get away from the apparition, the orderly, the patients, the world if at all possible. He just needed to be alone, just needed to get his thoughts in order. He needed –

Wraiths. The rotting faces of two ugly wraiths stared at him from a safety mirror nearby. He ran further down the hallway, saw two more. Oh god. He ran down the hallway, as far away from everyone as he possibly could. His room was at the end of the hall and he needed to get to it so he could sit by himself and gather his thoughts. It was locked.

"Having some trouble there, Dean?" Dean wheeled around to see a petite young woman in a black leather jacket and tight blue jeans with long, straight brown hair and jet black eyes. Ruby. He sunk to his knees in front of the door and she pouted. "What, you're not going to talk to me now?"

"You – you are not real!"

She smiled malevolently and took a step forward. "Actually…" She swung her foot forward and kicked him in the ribs. His face turned red as he clutched his stomach and doubled over in pain. "I can be very real." She kicked him again. "Feel that? That's your somatic responses kicking in. You think you feel the pain, so you do." She bent down, grabbed him by his shirtfront and punched him hard on the jaw, making his face turn to the right. "That's for killing me, by the way. Bet you didn't know you knew what 'somaticizing' even meant, huh? But, then again, Sam's taught you a few things over the years, hasn't he?" She grinned maliciously and then knelt down and pushed her lips to his ear and Dean winced in disgust from the proximity of their bodies. "You know, I've taught Sammy a few things during our time together, too." Her eyes lit up wickedly and her smile grew wider.

His lips and nose twitched in rage. "You don't get to call him that," he growled.

She pulled back, looked at his face, and laughed. "Oh really? Because I've been calling him that since you went to Hell!" Dean winced and Ruby's eyes shone with glee. "I mean, who else was going to take care of little Sammy? I saved his life, remember? Taught him how to gank demons better than you, took care of him when he was sick. And he trusted me because when it comes right down to it Dean, he loved me more than you. That's right; he loved a demon more than you. Smarts, doesn't it? And then I fucked him. Maybe you should ask him about it, get him to tell you all the dirty little things we did with each other. I introduced him to a few kinks and you'd be surprised what he'll do. Or maybe you wouldn't; you probably figured out that he did everything I wanted. All it took was just a little leading."

He grimaced. "Yeah, you must be real proud of yourself. Oh no, that's right." He gritted his teeth. "I killed your skanky ass." She kicked him in the face and Dean's world went black.

.

Dean sat huddled in a corner of the patient lounge watching his father stare at him with hateful eyes. After a staff member had found him passed out in front of his door, he'd been taken to Dr. Fuller, who'd prescribed him Thorazine, Aripiprazole, and Lorazepam and even though Dean couldn't even pronounce the names of the drugs, let alone know what they were used for, he'd quickly downed the medication when he'd been promised that it would stop his hallucinations and calm him down. So when he saw the pacing, red-faced apparition of his father in front of him, he wasn't sure to blame ghosts or ineffective medication.

"How long has this being going on, Dean?" John Winchester's nostrils flared and his eyes burned with an intensity that almost made him look possessed. "How long have I been going away on hunts, leaving you to care for your baby brother, while you fucking _molested_ him behind my back?"

Dean looked away from his father, unable to stand another second of the revulsion he saw in his eyes, and stared down at his hands. "It's not like that."

"Yeah? Then what's it like? Dammit, look at me when I'm talking to you!" Dean's eyes snapped up and John continued without further pause. "I… _Jesus_ , you used to give him his baths! Is that when you started with this? Touching him in the bathtub? Or when you were helping him get on his pajamas? Dammit, he trusted you!"

As his dad got louder, Dean got quieter. At the moment, his voice was barely above a whisper. "No Sir, I didn't touch him then."

"How did you do it?"

Dean creased his brows together and scrunched up his nose in disgust. He never imagined his father would want details. "What, touch him?"

"How did you twist his affections to make him do what you wanted? He never wanted this Dean, you know that! You got Jessica killed, you took away his future, brought down everything he worked for, and now you're giving him this sick, perverted relationship and you think it's just as good?"

Dean shook his head. "No. I don't think that. I know it's not. Not even close."

John bared his teeth. "You are not my son."

Dean's face twisted in agony. "Don't say that." He was whispering now, not because he was afraid of other patients and staff hearing him talk to himself but because he had heard the one thing that he had always been afraid his father would say, but until then never had. He was beyond a disappointment; he was a failure, a no-good piece of trash in the eyes of his father, his former role-model, practically his god.

"How can you continue on with this? You're hurting him!"

"It's – it's what Sam wants, Dad. I can't – I can't…" he looked down and hid his face to keep the tear that had escaped from being seen. "It's what Sam wants."

"This is not how I raised you. I didn't raise you to use your brother like this, to turn queer and pursue some perverted relationship!"

"I'm doing the best I can."

"Doing the best you can to get your dick wet!" He stopped moving, narrowed his eyes, and pointed a menacing finger at Dean. "Now, you listen to me, boy. You will not touch your brother again unless he's wounded and needs first aid, do you understand me?"

Dean opened his mouth to respond but just then Sam walked into the room. Dean watched his brother's eyes light up as he zeroed in on an empty table in the front of the room, but after a few seconds pause his face contorted into a look of horrible pain. He turned sharply away as if he was going to walk away, only to stare fixedly at something non-existent and then turn again, again, and again as if he was doing some sort of very strange, clumsy dance, or maybe having a seizure. Dean sat quietly, transfixed and frightened as Sam suddenly balled up his fists and began to wildly swing his huge arms in the air, as if he were having some sort of imaginary fight with multiple entities.

John pointed at the spectacle in front of them as the orderlies descended upon Sam's angry, fighting figure. "Do you see? That is what you are doing to your brother." He turned back to him and his eyes were completely cold. "You're going to pay for this."

Dean blinked and his father was gone. Behind his father's disappearing figure, Sam was being carted away as he screamed, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!"

"What's happening?" he whispered to no one in particular, "what's happened?"

Sam had gone crazy. Really crazy. Like him. Just like him. Oh shit. Dean got up from his chair and bolted to Martin's room.

A minute later Dean was standing by Martin's bed, where the older man was sitting up after Dean had wakened him, and leaning in so he could whisper to him low enough that the monster, his dad, or Ruby couldn't hear.

"Me and him freaking out on the same day, it's…"

"Dean." He turned his head instinctively at the sound of his mother calling his name. There was no one there, but he knew there wouldn't be and he quickly continued on with his sentence without pause.

It's gotta be –"

Martin opened his mouth into a little O shape. "The monster."

He looked around wildly and held up his fists. "What? Where – where – where?" His breaths came in short gasps, his heart beat in his ears, and then his body began to crumble to the ground. He gripped the edge of the bed to keep himself from fully collapsing.

"No, no!" Martin whispered vehemently and waved his arms with hands palms down in a silencing gesture. "There's nothing there!"

Dean took a couple of deep breaths "Okay."

_"Kick it in the ass, Dean. Don't miss."_

_"If we have a shot, Dean we have to take it."_

_"Don't fucking touch your brother again, you hear me?"_

_"Dean, sweetie, did you have a nightmare?"_

He took a deep breath and then held out his hand and touched his index finger to thumb; the voices were making it hard for him to concentrate. "What if this thing doesn't just feed on the insane? What if it makes people insane? Is that possible? Does that seem real?"

Martin brought his eyebrows together into a thoughtful look and licked his lips. "Well…I'm not the most reliable source on what's real, but it sounds…makes sense."

"Okay. Okay, so we got infected. Something shot us up with crazy or something…"

Something…what was it…it…turned them. It twisted them. Like Dad said he had done to Sam. Dad…Dad said he'd pay for what he'd done to Sam…

"Maybe – maybe it's the ghost of my dad."

"No. Focus on the wraith, Dean. Focus."

"Right, the wraith – the wraith – the wrath. The wraith – the wraith – it poisoned us, it – ah, with venom, by – b – ah – by touch, or, ah, venom, or saliva…" Oh my god. "Wendy."

"Wendy?"

"Wendy! Wendy slobbered all over me and Sam! That's how we got infected!" He jumped up. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?"

"Wendy's room! You gotta come; with Sam in lockdown I got no back-up!"

He expected an argument like he and Sam had gotten before when they'd tried to get him help, but the older man merely sighed, slid out of bed, and motioned for Dean to take the lead.

.

While the orderlies tried to control Martin, Dean ran out of Wendy's room, the bed sheets tied around the poor girl's wrists no doubt being the only thing keeping her alive. The wraith had escaped and could have run halfway through the hospital already. Thank god Martin had managed to injure her enough that she was leaving a thin blood trail behind her. He should have known it would be that damn perky nurse; she was the only person who was with them both the whole time; first with the physicals, then when he was with Sam in the morning, then in the morgue, and even after that in the hallway when he'd gone completely crazy. The blood trail was leading straight to Sam. Fuck, if that bitch so much as touched Sam, he was going to carve that ugly bitch a new face. God, maybe she'd even gone into Sam's room that morning they were together so she could kill him then and had only held off because they'd been together at the time.

When he burst into the room, Sam was strapped to a bed and trying helplessly to fight his restraints as the wraith had his head turned to the side with her giant retractable skewer protruding from her wrist, just inches away from his neck. She was sneering contentedly at him, obviously getting off on Sam's anger and fear. Dean's face twitched as he filled with a rage so profound that for a moment his vision cleared and the stream of voices following him went silent. He gritted his teeth and gripped the letter opener in his pocket a little tighter. "Get away from him."

Still grinning, she slowly rose from the bed and turned to face him. "Do you really think this is gonna end well for ya, kiddo?"

He was playing injured; she was going to tear him apart and they both knew it. "No." He was going down, but he was going down fighting, and he was dying with Sam. At the moment, it sounded like the best ending he could ever hope for. He pulled out his letter opener, narrowed his eyes at her, and smiled. "But I'm crazy, so, what the hell."

She smirked amusedly, lowered her spike, and waited for him to take the first swing.

.

Five minutes later, he and Sam were running up to the Impala while the nuthouse's alarm screamed a quarter of a mile behind them. Dean quickly walked up to the driver's side door. Fuck, they needed to get out of there, find a bar so he could drink until he could barely remember his own name, and then find a motel so he and Sam could fuck each other until they couldn't move. As he touched the handle though he looked back and saw Sam standing at the trunk and staring broodily at him.

"What are you doing? Sam? You okay?"

"No. No. The wraith –"

"What about her?"

"She was right."

"No, she wasn't. She's dead, okay? Let's hit the road. I need a drink, or twelve."

"Most of the time, I can hide it, but...I am angry. I'm mad at everything…"

Dean listened for a minute as Sam babbled on about his anger. He looked like he was about to break down and start bawling right there, as they stood in the woods still wearing their hospital gowns and with half the hospital and soon police hot on their trail. Dean had to stop him.

"Stop. Stop it. So what if you are? What are you gonna do? You gonna take a leave of absence? You gonna say yes to Lucifer? What?"

"No, of course not. I –"

"Exactly. And that's exactly what you're gonna do. You're gonna take all that crap and you're gonna bury it. You're gonna forget about it, because that's how we keep going! That's how we don't end up like Martin! Are you with me?" Sam continued to stare at him in silent anguish. "Come on, man. Are you with me?"

Sam sighed and his face became a little hard. "I'm with you."

Dean knew that look; he'd worn it a few times himself when he'd pushed aside his own hatred of chick-flick moments and tried to open up a little to Sam only to be shut down. He knew how much it hurt when that happened. But there was no way he was going to be indulgent with him on this because making him bury it was their only real option, for the both of them.

"Good. Let's get the hell out of here."

He climbed into the Impala. Sam joined him after a few seconds' pause and they drove off into the night. Bury it; that was what they needed to do. He had to forget that Sam was going to leave him because that was just what Sam always did. He had to bury his father's voice in his head and his crushing guilt and shame over what a disappointment he was. He had to push it all down and forget about it so he could finally just be with Sam and keep him in his life for as long as possible.


	28. Chevy Nights

They changed their clothes at a nearby gas station and then drove non-stop for four hours, crossing over the state line into Arkansas and finally stopping for the night at a run-down looking Motel 6 just off Interstate 40 in a little town called Russellville. They pulled the car up in front of the manager's office and as Dean put the car into park Sam looked in through the smudged glass door at the clerk behind the desk. She was exactly Dean's type; petite, blonde, and trashy-looking in her heavy, brightly colored make-up and what could have possibly been the world's tightest red sweater that was taking some serious abuse from being forced to stretch over her ample, perky breasts. Two or three months ago, Dean would have had no problem talking his way into this girl's pants, but this time he was only going to get her all worked up by flirting with her before he went back to their room, to him instead. Sam shook his head and smiled at Dean who, judging from the hard, serious look he was still sporting, hadn't yet spotted the clerk.

After Dean shut off the ignition, he looked over at Sam and blinked bemusedly at him. "What?"

Sam nodded his head towards the glass door. "You wanna be the one to go in and book us the room?"

Dean's eyes travelled over to where Sam had motioned, grew wide for half a second, and then quickly went hard. He put on a look of nonchalance. "Nah, I don't really care, Sammy; either, or."

What? He cocked his head to the side and brought his eyebrows together in a confused look. "Um, okay, I guess. You go in; I'll get our stuff."

Dean shrugged. "Alright."

Sam watched Dean walk in an overly casual manner over to the front door and let himself inside. Weird. He got out of the passenger seat, headed to the back of the car, fished his keys out of his pocket, and opened up the trunk. He wondered how much of their stuff he should bring out; they probably weren't going to stay there longer than a day or two until they found another hunt or went over to Bobby's. They were running low on funds so after this stop they were probably going to have to spend at least a few nights sleeping in the car until they managed to get more credit cards or hustle some pool. But, then again, Dean wanted to go to a bar after they checked-in, so maybe he could earn them some money while Dean got himself sloppy drunk. He reached into his other pocket to pull out his wallet and see how much money he had left, but it wasn't there. Oh yeah, that's right; he and Dean had stashed their wallets in the glove compartment before entering the hospital, just to make sure they would have their money and fake IDs in case they had to leave in a hurry. Neither of them had gotten them out, so that meant Dean was trying to book them a room with no cash. Sam shut the trunk without taking anything out and ran around to the front seat, grabbed their wallets, and raced into the office about a minute behind Dean.

When he walked in, the clerk was giving Dean the typical flirtatious smile and cleavage jiggle that he'd gotten used to seeing whenever his brother was around a girl like this, but to his surprise Dean wasn't taking the bait. Dean looked like he was in pain as he smiled politely at the girl and kept his eyes fixed on the girl's face while he talked.

"Well, actually I'm looking for a room with a king-sized bed for –" The sound of the door shutting behind him had Dean quickly turning around and looking back at him. "Hey, Sammy!" He turned back to the clerk, jerked his head towards him and then rested his elbow on the counter and pointed back at him with his thumb. "For me and him. You got anything?"

The girl's eyes widened noticeably and she stopped leaning against the counter and snapped herself upright as quickly as if something had bitten her. "Oh," she said with a thick southern accent, "he's your –"

"Yeah." His tone had just the slightest warning edge in it as he shot her a toothy grin and then he stood up straight and rubbed his hands together. "So, whatcha got?"

"Umm…" Her face, neck, and even hands were quickly turning as crimson as her sweater as she stared at the computer screen as if it had just become the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. She typed several keystrokes and then stopped and began drumming her long, red nails against the desk. "Room seventeen looks free. It's on the smoking allowed side, but it's the only king we have left available. Is that okay?"

"Sure, yeah, that's fine."

Sam watched amusedly as Dean felt himself up, touching the outside of all his pockets, before he stepped forward and held out his brother's worn, black leather wallet. "Here."

Dean grinned at Sam as he snatched the wallet from his hand, then whipped out a credit card and slid it across the counter to the still blushing girl who only spared him the quickest glance before taking the card and typing the information into the computer. She turned around and grabbed two keycards and then slid them and the credit card back over the counter to Dean. Still looking down, she leaned forward and then beckoned him with her finger to come closer. Dean leaned in and turned an ear to her and she whispered something to him, shifting her eyes over to him a couple of times as she spoke. Sam couldn't catch most of it, but he heard the words, "never" and "knew." Whatever she said must have been pretty amusing because when Dean leaned back, his lips were turned up in a cocky smile.

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart."

Dean gave the girl a wink and then turned around and walked over to Sam. He handed him one of the keycards and then gave his ass a hard swat before walking ahead and leaving the office. Feeling adequately mortified at Dean's sudden PDA, Sam turned around and trudged out of the office behind him. Dean was already well ahead of him and power-walking to their room, but with Sam's long legs he was able to easily overtake him. Their room was on the first floor in the back of the motel, facing the woods instead of the highway.

As Dean pulled out his keycard, Sam eyed him up curiously. That clerk was definitely his type and although he wasn't about to complain about not having to put up with Dean's shameless flirting for once, he wondered what could be wrong enough about her to keep him from using her to stroke his ego a little. And, on a different note, when did he suddenly become the type to flaunt their relationship and smack his ass in public? "What just happened back there?"

Dean opened the door to their room and then looked back at him and smirked. "You mean you wanna know what that chick just said to me?" He shrugged. "It was nothing. She was a little extra friendly before you walked in and she was just apologizing. Said she never would've offered anything to me if she knew. Guess she thinks you're the jealous type." He turned his body towards Sam, backed up a couple of steps so that he was just over the threshold leading into the room and then grabbed Sam by the wrist and pulled. Sam came along willingly and found himself in Dean's arms as he pushed their bodies together and then slipped his hands down into Sam's back pockets to grab his ass. He pushed their pelvises together, eyed up Sam's lips, and then went in for a quick, hard kiss and then pulled away to lightly and playfully nip Sam's bottom lip. "Which, of course, you are," he finished smugly.

"She offered you something? Dean, you went in like, sixty seconds before me, how is that even possible?" Okay, so it was no wonder Dean hadn't tried flirting with her; even when he was just looking for sex his brother had never gone for girls who started out a conversation by asking him if he wanted to go back to their place before even asking for his name.

Dean sniggered. "What can I tell ya Sammy; I'm hot."

"What'd she offer?"

Dean gave Sam's ass an extra tight squeeze. "Doesn't matter; it's nothing I won't be getting from you later tonight."

Sam smiled amusedly and raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? You sound pretty sure of yourself."

Dean moved one hand from his ass and grabbed the back of his neck. "That's 'cause I am."

Still smirking confidently, Dean pushed on the back of his neck to pull him forward until their faces were hardly an inch apart and then he closed the gap between them with a teasing brush of lips. Sam stayed still, his lips tingling as he waited for the kiss but instead Dean opened up, took his bottom lip into his mouth, and began to suck. The delicious suction was light at first but quickly turned a little harder, making his lip feel hot and tender, and then he felt Dean's tooth graze it and bite down and a jolt of excitement rose from deep within his belly. Dean swiped his tongue over the place he had just bitten and then pushed his tongue past Sam's lips, experimentally running it over his teeth as a way of asking him to open his mouth. Sam inhaled sharply, grabbed Dean around the waist, threw the door open so hard that he heard the knob hit the wall, and then pushed them both inside the room, slamming Dean's body up against the door. He opened his mouth wide for Dean and felt his tongue lick and massage his own. As he explored Dean's mouth he reveled in his taste; diner coffee and pie, peppermint, and a hint of earthy spice that he couldn't quite identify by any flavor other than _Dean_. Then Dean wrapped his mouth around his tongue and sucked. Sam immediately felt blood rush to his cock and he began to rock against Dean's leg. He heard Dean's breath catch and then he was grabbing Sam's face and moving in for more, driving his tongue deep into his mouth. Sam kissed him hungrily, wanting more, wanting to feel and taste more of Dean, to be closer, to take him all in and never let go.

Without warning Dean suddenly pulled away and Sam stood there, eyes closed and lips still moving for a second before he opened them and looked into the cocksure smirk on his brother's face. "Slut."

He sidled away from the door and around Sam, walking across the carpet to the center of the room and then he stood there looking at him as if he'd just told a hilarious joke. Sam turned to him, his newly red and swollen lips slightly parted as he stared at him with an indignant look. "Ah, dude, you're a jerk."

Dean's grin was ear-to-ear, showing all his teeth. "What? Come on, it's after ten already; time to head out to the bar!"

He adjusted the uncomfortable semi-hard length in his jeans. "Yeah, it's after ten, which gives us plenty of time to finish what you started and then head out to the bar."

Dean walked up to him and then clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll finish it tonight; I promise. I'm gonna give you everything you want."

As Dean walked out the door, Sam's mind flashed to dozens of things he really wanted to do to him and had to once again adjust his growing length. He moaned in frustration. "Not helping, Dean."

.

As the two of them sat down opposite one another in a booth, a cute little brunette waitress wearing a low-cut black sleeveless shirt, a high-cut denim skirt, and a wide grin approached them. She gave Sam an appraising look and then turned to Dean and her smile widened to show all of her teeth.

"Hey, what can I get you guys?"

Sam eyed her up. She was cute; her facial features were petite and decidedly feminine and she had nice perky tits, a cute little ass, and athletic legs. It was obnoxious to look at someone and know that Dean was going start hitting on her in about thirty seconds while he sat right the fuck there, but that was just Dean. It wasn't like he was going to change. He turned away from her and worked his face to look casual as he stared at Dean. His brother looked at her with his usual wide, bullshit flirtatious grin and his eyes scanned down her body for a second. Sam watched patiently, trying to look nonchalant and hide his annoyance. Dean was his, he'd said so himself. Maybe later when they were in their room he'd just suck a nice bruise into Dean's chest and show him who he really belonged to. He looked away and down at the table, trying not to stare at Dean as he worked his mojo on the waitress but then Dean coughed and shifted in his seat and then Sam looked up again to find his expression changed to a polite half-smile as he looked a little too resolutely into the waitress's face. Huh. Sam gave her another once-over. She had a little bit of tanned flesh falling out over the back of her shirt and she also had a pierced nose and a tribal tattoo around her wrist. Still, was cute and by no means overweight and, unless they were excessive, outlandish, or obnoxiously huge, tattoos and piercings didn't usually bother Dean. What had he missed?

Dean nodded at her. "Yes. I'll have a double of whiskey, leave the bottle and he'll have an empty shot glass and a beer."

She jerked back theatrically and her smile never wavered. "Wow, you guys celebrating something?"

"Let's just say… rough day at the office."

As she turned and walked away, Sam smiled amusedly but the look Dean returned was apologetic, almost as if he thought he was in trouble. "What?"

"An empty shot glass and leave the bottle? Wow, you really are intending on getting annihilated tonight, because you know I'm not drinking with you, right?"

Dean relaxed and grinned. "Yeah, just thought I'd order it for you anyway, just in case." He leaned back in his seat. "Because, you know, one of these nights you might just pull that huge stick out of your ass and decide to have a good time."

Sam was tempted to make a joke by commenting that the only thing wrong with him was that there neither of them had had anything up their asses for too long, but decided against it. Dean never wanted to bring attention to their relationship if they were anywhere outside of the Impala or a motel room and even if for whatever reason he was lately becoming a bit more open about it, like with Martin and that motel clerk, that didn't mean that he wanted attention brought to it in a crowded bar where someone could overhear them. So, instead, he sighed and rested his head against the back of the booth.

"That was one bad hunt."

"Oh yeah, about that, remind me to kick your ass later for talking me into doing that one. I don't care who the favor's for, no more nuthouses, I mean it!"

Sam sniggered. "Yeah, I hear ya. Well, don't worry; you're not gonna see me rushing off to do any wraith hunts anytime soon, either."

Dean leaned forward and opened his mouth to say something but right at that moment the waitress came up to them, carrying a tray. As she approached, Sam could tell that she'd either pulled her shirt down or her bra up because her breasts suddenly looked like they desperately wanted to escape her shirt and it even looked like she might have freshened up her make-up. She gave him a smile and a wink.

"Here you go guys." She handed them all their things, then held her tray between two fingers and rested her hands on the table, taking care to squish her breasts between her arms. She looked at Dean. "My name's Marcy. If there's anything else I can get you, just let me know."

Dean lifted his eyes and gave her that same pained face Sam saw him give the motel clerk earlier. "Sure, thanks Marcy, we'll do that."

Clearly feeling Dean's frosty reception, Marcy straightened up and her cheeks flushed little pink as she smiled embarrassedly and turned to walk away. Sam watched her leave and then turned to his brother, who he discovered was already watching him, and raised an eyebrow. "So, what's wrong with her?"

"Who?"

"The waitress. She was hitting on you pretty hard."

Dean looked at him as if he'd just said something in a foreign language. "Are you asking me why I didn't try to pick up our waitress?"

"No, of course not, not pick her up, I just…" He scratched the back of his head. He couldn't believe he was asking Dean why he wasn't flirting shamelessly with some chick right in front of him. "Never mind."

.

The cool metal from the hood of the Impala felt soothing against Sam's back. Despite the fact that they were already into late November, the night was unseasonably warm and he and Dean had both taken off their button-up over shirts, leaving on their short-sleeved tees. They'd left the bar an hour ago and after Sam had wrestled the keys away from a very drunk Dean and was safely behind the wheel, the two of them had started driving back to their motel until Dean had punched him in the arm and pointed to a dirt road on the right.

"Turn here," he'd said.

"What? Why?"

"Come on, Sam, just do it, I noticed it earlier."

Now, as he lay beside Dean on the hood of the car, their feet resting on the chrome in the front and their heads resting up against the cool glass of the windshield, Sam was glad he'd humored his brother. The road had ended in one of the most quiet, peaceful-looking fields he'd ever seen and the sky was clear and starry. He and Dean hadn't sat under the stars in years, just lying silently beside each other while he picked out the constellations and enjoyed the serenity he felt coming from his brother as they lay beside each other. He yawned. It felt like they hadn't been there long, but realistically he knew it had to be getting late. He turned his head away from the sky so he could look over at his brother. Dean looked more sober than he had when they'd first arrived and his expression was serious and contemplative. He looked so beautiful this way, when he wasn't trying to look tough or keep up some kind of guard, when he could just cut through all the bullshit and just be Dean. Sam slowly slid his eyes from his face down to the pale, smooth skin of his neck and then to the large, angry, purple bruise on his collar bone. He winced a little; looked like it hurt. It was his bruise, what he'd done to Dean when he saw him kiss Wendy. He shouldn't have been so rough with him. But, then again, it was his mark, something everyone could see and know that Dean was his and no one else's and that thought made him stiffen a little. He took his eyes off the bruise and let them drag down his lean torso. Then he got down to the slight bulge in the front of Dean's pants and he knew that they were clearly both feeling the past week they'd spent without sex.

Not only had they not had sex in a week, but they hadn't had really good sex in well over a month, not since the time they had sixty-nined each other at Bobby's house. He was tired of the disconnected sex they were having lately, of everything just rough hands and tongues and fucking and then Dean getting up and dressing right afterwards while he lay alone in bed. He moved over onto his side and slid a little closer to Dean. Dean turned his head to face him, his eyes already dark and serious with arousal, and stayed perfectly still as he moved his face in slowly and then stopped, his lips just a centimeter shy of touching Dean's. He could feel Dean's heat on his skin and his soft breath on his lips and his mouth tingled pleasantly, wanting so badly to close the half inch gap between them but instead he let out a soft breath through his mouth and watched Dean's lips open slightly as the hot air ghosted over them. Dean grabbed him by the back of the head and brought him in the rest of the way, all tongues and teeth, want and hunger, from the beginning. He put his hands on Dean's flat pecks and began flicking his fingers over his hardening nipples until they felt upright and perky and then slid his hands to the bottom of Dean's shirt and tugged upward. Dean arched his back to allow him to push the fabric up and then broke the kiss to raise his arms. The shirt was quickly off of him and on the ground. Sam moved down and fastened his mouth around one nipple while using his free hand to play with the other one. He sucked and nibbled and then beat his tongue against the hardened nub, delighting in the little moans Dean made.

"Fuck, Sam, you wanna put that mouth to better use?"

He let go of Dean's nipple and gave it one last lick before he moved up to Dean's neck, laying his mouth on that sensitive area right behind his ear and then resting his hand against the hardening bulge in Dean's pants and beginning to slowly rub.

"Ough!" Dean let out an incomprehensible shout and began panting a little.

Sam moved his mouth away from Dean's neck and licked his earlobe. Dean liked a little bit of dirty talk. Although just thinking about it made his cheeks feel a little warm with embarrassment, he pressed his lips to Dean's ear. "What do you want me to do with my mouth, Dean?" He single-handedly unbuttoned Dean's jeans and slid down the zipper, then wrapped his hand around Dean's tented length and began stroking him through his boxers.

"Fuck, Sam!"

Sam's own hard-on was pushing painfully against the zipper of his jeans and he began rubbing himself up against Dean's hip in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure. Dean's boxers were beginning to get a little wet with pre-come and Sam felt his mouth water.

"What was that? I didn't hear you. What do you want me to do, Dean?"

He gripped Dean's cock harder and began pumping him a little faster and Dean let out a filthy moan. "F-f-uck, oh god, suck me, Sam."

Sam moved away from Dean's ear and he licked a stripe down Dean's neck, then climbed off of the hood, grabbed Dean's boxers and pulled them and his pants down past his thighs. Then he got down onto his knees, and grabbed Dean's legs so he could pull him down on the hood and towards him. Dean's red, fully hard cock was right in front of his face, the tip glistening with pre-come. He flattened his tongue and ran it from the base to the head, feeling Dean's pulse on his tongue as he did so, and then swiped his tongue along the tip, tasting the salt and musk that was Dean. He swirled his tongue all around the head, wetting it with his saliva and then took a breath and blew on it lightly, letting his cool breath stimulate the already oversensitive nerves and then he reached up and used one hand to lightly massage Dean's balls, letting one finger slide back and forth against the sensitive skin just behind them. Then, without warning he closed his mouth around the head and sucked it down. Every time he sunk down he put just a little more of Dean inside his mouth. When he felt the head rubbing up against the back of the roof of his mouth, he sunk down more and fought the urge to cough and gag as his throat swallowed reflexively around Dean's cock. Drool ran out of his mouth and coated the rest of Dean's length down to his balls and even his hand as he continued to fight his gag reflex, but Sam kept going, wanting so badly to make this good for Dean.

As he continued to slowly take him deeper and deeper, he watched Dean moan, writhe, and babble before him, screaming out obscenities interspersed with Sam's name and repeated shouts of, "God – s-so good at this," "yeah, oh, fuck yeah," "been too long," and, "god, oh god!" in between sharp, breathy gasps and long, filthy moans. Sam felt the head hit the back of his throat and then had to stop massaging Dean so he could firmly push his hips down on the hood when Dean tried to thrust upwards. Even under Sam's hands, Dean moved his hips spasmodically, making small little jerks that encouraged him to move faster as his whole body trembled. He'd never seen Dean come apart quite like this before, but then again he'd never deep-throated him or sucked him this slowly before. His own cock twitched in his pants, he felt his boxers becoming wet from steadily leaking pre-cum, and if it he didn't need to use his hands to hold Dean's hips down he'd be taking out his own cock and jerking himself off at just the sight of his fucked-out brother. He kept moving slowly, wanting to get used to this new thing they were trying, but then Dean reached down to grab at his hair and let out a pained moan.

"God Sammy, please, let me come!"

His voice was raspy and low, almost begging, and Sam felt a jolt of excited energy race through him at the sound of Dean needing something from him so badly. He pulled back so Dean was no longer in his throat and then sped up the pace, hollowing out his cheeks as he did do, and sucked a little harder, working his mouth for all it was worth to try and get him to come.

"God Sam, so good, so fucking good! God, baby, gonna – gonna – a-ah, a-ah, oh Sam – aah, oh god, gonna–"

Sam felt wave upon wave of Dean's salty, musky release fill his mouth. He swallowed it down as best he could and when Dean was finally spent, he licked his lips and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand and then climbed back up onto the car and lay beside Dean, who actually looked like he was about to pass out. His eyes were barely open, his mouth agape, and he was lying with his arms spread out on the hood, looking about as relaxed as he'd ever seen him.

"Was it good?"

Dean rolled his head over to him and eyed up his mouth, then moved a hand to weakly grab onto his shirt. "C'mere."

Sam smiled and eagerly leaned into him, hungrily bringing their mouths together. Dean's lips felt like they were moving sluggishly against his own but that was probably because he was still rock hard and worked up as hell. But then Dean swiped his tongue across his lips and opened his mouth a little wider, encouraging Sam to deepen the kiss and Sam pushed his tongue deep into Dean's mouth, more than happy to oblige. As Dean slid his tongue all over his tongue, teeth, and even the insides of his cheeks, Sam felt him moan into his mouth.

Dean broke the kiss and then gave Sam's lips one last lick. "Mm, I love tasting myself in your mouth."

He was already so worked up that he had to suppress a moan and he once again pushed down at the crotch of his jeans. Dean swatted his hand away so he could unbutton and unzip them and then he reached his hand in, pulled out his cock, and began to slowly stroke it, teasingly running his hand up and down the fully hard length. He looked down so he could watch Dean touch him. Some pre-come escaped from the head and Dean ran his thumb over it, smearing it all over his cockhead and Sam gritted his teeth in frustration; he needed more contact and really, really wanted to come. He nipped playfully at Dean's jaw.

"I taste better," he whispered. He swiped his tongue along Dean's lips and then took the bottom one into his mouth and gave it a little nibble. "You wanna…"

Dean pulled his hand off of him and then brought his thumb to his mouth, licking the pre-cum off of it with a smile. "Mm, as good as that sounds, I have a better idea."

Dean reached down into his bunched up pockets that were hanging around his knees, pulled something out, and then handed it to him. He sat up and gave Sam a look of utmost seriousness and just a tad bit of uncertainty as Sam curled his hand around the small plastic bottle that had just been handed to him. Then he looked down and his eyes grew wide in surprise when he saw that what he was holding was a travel-size tube of lube.

"You're giving this to me?"

"Yeah, I…" He cast his eyes downward awkwardly. "Well, I thought…"

Sam put the bottle in his pocket, grabbed Dean's chin and jerked his head up, then gruffly cupped his face in his hands and pushed their mouths together. "Yes," he breathed as he kissed him and pressed down on his body so hard that it pushed Dean's head back against the windshield. "God yes."

Dean grabbed his face and stroked it with his thumbs as he let him lead the kiss, which quickly turned into a tangle of tongues and teeth as Sam drove his tongue deep into Dean's mouth and bit his already plump lips to make them red and swollen. He tried climbing on top of Dean but the metal of the hood depressed under his knees making the unmistakable "gwar-app" sound of bending sheet metal and he quickly got off of him and lay back on his side. If he ended up actually denting the car it would not only kill the mood but Dean would be furious with him.

Dean chased his lips and when Sam was resettled beside him he laid soft, affectionate kisses on his mouth. "How about we take his to the backseat?" he growled out between kisses.

Without waiting for a reply, Dean descended from the hood, taking care to pull his pants back up over his hips to keep them from completely falling down, and then headed to the backseat. Once he was sitting on the seat with his legs still hanging outside he threw off his boots and socks and then slid back onto the seat, staring intensely at him. Sam also hurriedly removed his footwear and then quickly climbed into the car and on top of Dean, their feet still hanging outside. He slid on top of him, pushing his rock hard length against Dean, who was still mostly limp as he was still recovering from his recent orgasm, but Dean moaned at the contact and began moving his hips against Sam's. Sam sat up and pulled his shirt up over his head and then leaned down and took Dean's lips in a hard passionate kiss. He'd been hard for so long by now that all he wanted to do was come, but he couldn't, not until he was inside Dean. He grabbed the waistband of Dean's jeans and Dean lifted his hips so Sam could yank them and his boxers down to his knees. The space was so cramped that he had to back out of the Impala and stand just outside the open door to wrestle the pants off of Dean's legs but, with a little help from Dean, he slipped them off his feet and hastily threw them on the floor of the Impala. He looked around, making sure no one was around and feeling grateful for the privacy this spot offered, then moved his hands then quickly to his own jeans and in record time they joined Dean's in the mounting clothes heap, but not before he pulled the lube out from his pocket. With it, he slathered a generous portion onto his cock, then re-entered the car to lay back on top of Dean. He began sliding their cocks together and he felt Dean quickly begin to grow harder. They kissed each other with growing passion as their slicked up dicks and increasingly sweat-slicked bodies grinded against one another and then Dean grabbed onto his arms, thrust his hips up against his, and bit Sam's lip as he let out a little moan and Sam couldn't take it anymore.

"You ready?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, Sammy, fucking do it."

Sam sat up in the car so that he was on his knees and sitting on his shins and then positioned himself between Dean's legs and moved his lover's hips upwards until his legs were in the air so he could get better access. He squirted more lube than was probably necessary onto his fingers and then pressed one up against Dean's hole, lightly massaging and slicking up the outside before he tentatively shoved it in to the first knuckle.

"Is this okay?"

"Fuck Sam, I'm not some delicate flower, just do it!"

He rocked down on Sam's finger and pushed it in the rest of the way. Dean was nervous about this, he could tell that much by his insistent attempt at showing him how much he wasn't. Not that he could blame him, of course. He was spreading himself out underneath him and letting him take control. Vulnerability wasn't something that Dean did well with him and never did at all with anyone else. Feeling Dean's tight muscles clench around his finger made his cock twitch at the thought of them squeezing around him once he was finally inside, but he was going to have to wait for that. This was going to be good for Dean and painless if at all possible. He crooked his finger and used it to massage the tight walls and Dean let out a little groan and rocked his hips to drive the finger even further inside.

"How's it feel?"

"Feels good, Sammy. More."

As commanded, Sam slipped a second slicked up finger inside, crooked it, and began slipping them in and out of Dean. Dean clenched against the intrusion at first and he could feel him stifle a moan of discomfort but when Sam looked up into his face, Dean nodded at him. Sam continued to finger him, watching his slippery fingers move inside with utter fascination. He'd never done this before and stretching Dean's tight, pink, puckered hole to fit him was one of the hottest things he'd ever seen. Soon Dean's muscles began to loosen around his fingers and he was once again rocking against them so he slipped a third finger inside. He fingered him deep, driving them all the way in and moving the tips as he thrust them in and out. Then his fingers hit a bundle of nerves and Dean practically screamed and arched his back off the seat.

"Did I hit it?"

"Fuck Sam, do that again!"

He obeyed, moved his fingers back and forth, brushing them against his prostate every time and Dean was once again writhing, screaming, and thrusting his hips.

"Enough prep, come on, do it already!"

Sam's body practically trembled with his desire to push into Dean, to take him hard and rough and thrust into his body until they were both a boneless mess of nerves and lust, but Dean was still so tight and he wanted to make sure he was prepped properly. He kept going, just in case.

"Jesus Sam, you gonna try to fit your whole fist in there or are you gonna fuck me already?"

Sam withdrew his fingers, picked the up lube from off the floor, and spread more of it on his cock. "Now who's the slut?" he asked with a cheeky smile.

"Fuck you, Sam."

Sam grinned even wider and lined himself up, then pushed the head inside. Even with the prep, Dean's muscles clenched down on his cock and he heard his brother gasp. He stared into his lover's face, eyes closed and biting his lip, and felt a little tug of guilt for hurting him.

"I won't move until you tell me to."

Dean nodded. "It's okay Sammy, move."

He hesitated but after a moment's pause he did as asked and began slowly pushing himself inside. It had been close to a year since he'd actually been inside someone and the feeling of Dean's muscled walls pressing around him felt so good that it made him gasp.

"Oh my god Dean, you're so tight, Jesus, it feels incredible!"

Once he was fully inside he paused and waited for the go ahead to start moving. Dean still had a look of discomfort and his eyes were tightly shut. Sam leaned forward to take his lips in a gentle kiss. Dean kissed him back, then grabbed his face and opened his eyes and Sam's heart literally missed a beat at the love and trust he saw reflected there.

"Dean."

"Go ahead, Sammy. Move."

Sam brought himself out only slightly before he pushed back in, wanting to be as deep inside of him as possible. He could feel the rings of muscles squeezing him tight and he buried his head in the hollow of Dean's neck and moaned as he slid himself in and out, in and out, finding a slow rhythm. He changed angles a little bit, trying to go deeper and then he hit that special bundle of nerves again, making Dean buck his hips, gasp, and moan and he wrapped his arms around Sam's shoulders and squeezed, digging his fingers hard into his flesh.

Sam kissed him on the ear. "Do you feel me, Dean? Do I feel good?"

"Fuck, Sam, you feel incredible! Faster, faster!"

Sam sat back up again as he moved inside of Dean and the car began to rock, slightly at first but before long the sound of squeaking springs added to the sounds of their loud breathing, moans, and shouts of ecstasy as Sam continued driving faster, harder, deeper into him. Dean's eyes were darkened with desire and he grit his teeth and growled as he moved in time with Sam's movements, once again writhing and babbling underneath him. Sam looked from Dean's face and down so he could watch his hard, flushed length slide in and out of his hole and he knew he wasn't going to last much longer. He wrapped his hand around Dean's fully hard and leaking cock and began tugging at it furiously.

"Oh god, Dean, oh god, Dean, come, please come, oh – oh – oh! God, come for me, come for me, come for me!"

"Sam, Jesus, hearing you talk like that – oh fuck! Oh God, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!"

Dean's ass muscles clenched around him as he came, thick, ropy come shooting all over Sam's hand and their stomachs and Sam's eyes crossed at the sensation as he too climaxed, shooting into Dean harder than anyone he'd remembered having had sex with before. He continued to thrust into Dean as he moved through all the waves of his orgasm and then finally collapsed onto his chest while still inside of him.

He lay there, motionless and panting for a few moments and then wrapped his hand around one of Dean's biceps and squeezed. "Oh God, thank you, Dean. That was incredible!"

Chest still heaving, Dean reached down and lightly stroked Sam's hair. "Yeah, I know, I'm awesome."

Sam yawned. "You are Dean. You really are."


	29. Doubt

Dean winced as he slid into the booth of the diner. Sam noticed and felt a small pang of guilt as he saw his brother shift around a little bit and try to make himself comfortable on the hard, plastic seat that offered very little cushion. He remembered how he'd felt the morning after the first time he'd bottomed and Dean didn't look like he was any more comfortable than he had been. Maybe he shouldn't have gotten so excited and thrust into him so hard towards the end. Dean finally situated himself and then glanced up and when he saw Sam's sympathetic look, he glared at him. Sam looked down at the table, took a sip of his coffee, and remained decidedly silent.

"Don't you dare say a word."

"I wasn't."

Dean's face twitched a little but for a moment it looked like he was going to let it drop. That was, until he leaned forward and stabbed the table with his finger. "Okay, so I'm sore. Of course I'm sore, I had a fucking horse cock up my ass last night."

Sam spluttered his coffee, mid-sip, sending droplets of hot, brown liquid flying to the table, the sleeve of his jacket, and down his face. Some of it even managed to shoot up his nose. He gruffly put the cup down, then grabbed a napkin to wipe his mouth and chin. His face contorted in mortification as their waitress, who looked about three days older than Moses, picked that exact moment to come up to their table holding a couple of menus. She slapped the menus down in front of them, wearing a poorly hidden look of shock and disgust and Dean smiled apologetically at her as she wordlessly walked off.

As he finished wiping the spilt coffee from his face, Sam was so embarrassed that he even felt his ears blush. He leaned forward and whispered, "thanks Dean, why don't you say it a little louder; I think there are still some people left in the kitchen who didn't hear you."

Looking horrified, Dean leaned in and considerably lowered his voice. "Dude, why didn't you tell me that our waitress was right behind me?"

Sam stared down at his napkin and began to wipe up the spilled coffee on the table between them, moving his hand in small, circular loops. "I didn't know you were gonna say _that_."

Dean leaned back and sighed. "Yeah, well. Still, point stands."

"I'm sorry, Dean, it's not like I can make it smaller."

"Yeah, well. Don't think you're getting that again anytime soon."

Heat was crawling up Sam's neck and he tugged a little at his shirt collar with one hand as he set the wet napkin aside with the other. "Okay, sure Dean, no pressure."

Dean blinked at him in surprise for a moment but then looked down and took a sip of his coffee and flipped open his menu. "I got a call this morning from one of our old babysitters. You remember Donna who used to work out at the Mayflower Motel up in Housatonic, Massachusetts?"

Yes. The jealousy ate away at Sam immediately as he remembered exactly who he was talking about. She was their babysitter the summer before he went into sixth grade. Their dad had had them holed up in that crappy motel all summer while he was out on hunts. Donna was a maid there and he'd given her some story about needing someone to check in on his boys while he was out on business. Sam, who was ten, had just started to really notice girls at the time and saw that their babysitter was pretty, but his hormonal fourteen year old brother had harbored a hardcore crush on her the entire summer. Dean had had sex for the first time that year in March, twice more by the beginning of the summer, and thought that he had become some kind of stud who was going to seduce the babysitter. Sam had decided to keep himself busy that summer by assigning himself his own reading list so he could pretend not to notice how hard Dean tried to get into her pants every time she came in to check on them. He didn't even have any idea at the time why it bothered him so much; he just knew that whenever Dean shamelessly eye-fucked her or spent extra time stretching and flexing in his swimsuit near the pool when she was around that it made him roll his eyes and want to hit him square in the jaw. He hadn't begun to have the weird sexual thoughts and dreams about Dean until he was sixteen, but when he really thought about it, he supposed that in some way he'd really wanted Dean his whole life.

Sam scrunched his eyebrows together in fake concentration as if he really needed to mentally catalogue their extensive list of babysitters to remember her. "Uh, yeah, I think."

Dean worked just as hard to look nonchalant as he stared down at his menu. "Yeah, well turns out that she still had one of Dad's old numbers and managed to track us down. She called my cell early this morning while you were still sleeping and asked if we could go up there and help her out; seems she's got some kind of poltergeist problem up her way."

Sam nodded. "Wow, poor woman. Okay, sure, you wanna start heading up there after breakfast?"

"Sure."

Sam eyed up a little bruise on Dean's neck that he'd left the night before and smiled. "Although…" He looked down and let out a nervous chuckle.

"What?"

"Well, we've still got three more hours until checkout; maybe we can…I mean, you wanna…"

Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise for a second before he shot Sam a cocky half-smile, closed his menu, opened his wallet and slapped three dollars down on the table. "Come on; we'll eat later."

.

It took them a day and a half to get to Housatonic Massachusetts and by the time they pulled into the Lucky Star Motel it was nearly midnight. Sam went inside to check them into a room while Dean grabbed their clothes and supplies from the trunk. When Sam came out of the office, he handed Dean his key and sighed.

"We're in 102. There were no rooms left with king-sized beds."

Dean shrugged and took his key. "Just like Ricky and Lucy in 'I Love Lucy.' You can be Lucy." Sam gave him a disapproving face and Dean sniggered, picked up their bags, and began heading towards their room. "Honestly Sam, I don't care. I'm so tired I can barely think straight and it's just for a couple of nights. Maybe we can push the beds together or something."

Although he was still unhappy about the arrangement, Sam nodded and the two of them trekked across the parking lot to their room to settle in for the night.

The next morning they interviewed Donna at around ten o'clock and then stopped for lunch at some burger joint. Dean began to unwrap his bacon cheeseburger and thought about the case they had in front of them. These evil things really pissed him off when they decided to go after families, and especially when they went after children. But, then again, it was one of the main reasons he and Sam were around; they had to help families like Donna's to make sure that other people got to be happy. Happy with their own families, their own careers, their own children. It was kind of an appealing thought, really; he could see why Sam would want all of that. And he'd come close with Jessica, that was until he'd come to Stanford and screwed it all up. His dad's words at the mental institution came back to him and suddenly screamed in his head: _He never wanted this Dean, you know that! You got Jessica killed, you took away his future, brought down everything he worked for, and now you're giving him this sick, perverted relationship and you think it's just as good?_ No; no, of course it wasn't as good, he knew that, but Sam wanted him anyway. But for how long? Soulmates or not, it was still possible for him to get in the way of Sam's dreams and when things, like hunting, Dad, him, got in the way of that, the kid always split.

A rhythmic shaking in front of him broke his train of thought. He looked up to see Sam holding his stupid "Health Quake Salad Shake," which made him look gay enough, and shaking it back in forth in a way that made him look like he was jerking it off. Dean felt some blood rushing to his lower half at watching Sam's movements and scowled. Sam, who was staring intently at his laptop, took a couple of seconds to notice but when he did, he raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

Dean shot him a warning glare. "Oh, you shake it up, baby!"

Sam rolled his eyes and unsuccessfully tried to hide a little half-smile, but whether it was because of his comment or because he knew exactly what his hand motions were doing to him Dean wasn't exactly sure. Either way, Sam took some pity on him and finally stopped shaking his salad, popped the top off, and started to eat. Dean watched his hands for a second and thought about how he wanted to suck on his fingers the second they got back to the Impala. Then when they got back to the room… You know he never wanted this. You know he never wanted this. He looked down and tried to push his father's voice out of his head; he told himself he was going to stop thinking about this shit. You took away his future. He watched Sam eat his salad and thought about him living in some McMansion in the suburbs, coming home from work to a 'hello honey, how was your day," and rushing off after dinner to do math homework with shaggy-haired kids who had his eyes. It looked nice. Safe. He replayed part of an old conversation he'd once had with Sam years ago: _'So, you're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life, is that it?' 'No, not normal. Safe.'_

Dean cleared his throat. "You know, poltergeist aside, Donna looked pretty good, don't you think?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, don't tell me you've still got the hots for our babysitter."

"What? No." Okay, she did look pretty hot for her age, but he wasn't going to tell Sam that. Sam shot him a look halfway between amused and annoyed and Dean looked away and laughed nervously. "That's weird." He looked back at his brother's skeptical face and made a split second decision. "I'm just saying that she, you know, she – she's – she's doing good. You know, with her husband, her kid. This whole Amityville thing being thrown at them, and they're hanging tough."

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

Dean paused. _Shut up, Dean; you're going down a road that you're really not gonna like. Do it Dean, don't be a chicken shit now._ He decided to recklessly plunge ahead. "You ever think that you'd want something like that? Wife, rugrats, the whole nine?"

Sam cast his eyes back down to his laptop and shook his head. "No. I mean, not really my thing anymore."

Dean examined his face for a minute and then looked down and couldn't quite figure out why a part of him felt a little saddened at Sam's answer. "Yeah."

.

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his chair and readjusted himself in his jeans. It had been four hours since they'd left the burger joint and Sam had gone to the courthouse to dig up some information on their possible ghost-witch Maggie Briggs. In that time, Dean had cleaned the guns, sharpened the knives, and was at the moment trying to fill shotgun shells with salt to try and keep his mind off of the fact that he and Sam hadn't had sex in two days. As he poured the salt into his sixth shotgun shell, he thought for at least the sixtieth time about how Sam felt inside him a few nights ago. He liked feeling the pressure and loved watching Sam's enjoyment. Also, it was hard for him to just give up complete control but once he did he found that he actually really liked just getting to lay back and enjoy it while he watched Sam do all the work. And yeah, he was a little sore the next day but after the first twelve hours or so even that wasn't so bad because it was a reminder of what they'd done, like he could still feel him even afterwards. And Sam could never know any of that.

The salt filled the round and Dean used his thumbs to pack it down so he could fit just a little more, then set it aside along with the other five. Sam had looked so sexy when he'd thrust his hips enthusiastically like he did and his dick had felt awesome rubbing back and forth against his prostate. Shit, he'd wasted the last thirty years of his life by not playing with that… His hand drifted absently to the hard bulge in his jeans and began to slowly rub as he grabbed the next empty shotgun shell. Sam's fingers had felt so good inside him, especially when he did that thing where he hooked them and massaged him from the inside. Dean took his hand off of the shell and went to the button on his pants, then the zipper. He pushed the denim aside, then slid his hips forward in the chair, reached inside his boxers, and grabbed his hot, hard cock. He brought it out of his pants and then grabbed his little bottle of lube from his side pocket, squirted a little onto his hand, and then ran the slippery substance down his rigid length. Images of Sam's big, hard cock sliding back and forth inside him immediately came to mind and he bit his lip, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back in his chair as he slowly stroked himself. He thought about how Sam snapped his hips back and forth, his skin flushed, sweat running down his face, eyes half-closed and his mouth open in ecstasy. He'd sounded so hot when he panted and moaned into his ear, unable to stop the sounds of pleasure that fell from his lips as he picked up the pace, bringing the both of them closer to orgasm, his hot hand touching him, his fucked-out voice literally begging him to come…

His phone rang. With a frustrated groan, Dean took his hand off of his red, leaking length, reached into his pocket, grabbed his phone, and looked at the caller ID. It was Sam. Dean rolled his eyes and snapped the phone open. "Hello?"

"Dean, hey, I'm coming back from the courthouse, should be home in about ten minutes."

Dean sighed, wiped his hand off on his boxers, and tucked his cock back into his pants. "Yeah, okay."

"You alright? You sound a little out of breath."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just hurry back, okay?"

"Right, yeah, I'm walking back as fast as I can. I finally left when my eyes began to cross."

"So, any luck?"

"Bupkes. Can't even find proof that a woman named Maggie Briggs existed, much less where she's planted."

Dean felt a little guilty for it, but he smiled and relaxed a little when he heard that. If Sam didn't find any records then they weren't going to be spending the night digging up graves or sifting through pounds of papers to find the information they needed to dig up graves. Tonight was going to be just him and Sam, alone. "Okay. Well, we've got a minute to breathe here. Let's, ah, let's pick it up first thing."

"You bet. See you in a few."

Dean shut his phone. He thought briefly of undressing and either jumping in the shower or laying naked in bed but decided against it; no reason to look too eager. Instead he quickly ran to the bathroom and washed the lube off his dick and then toweled it dry, resolutely ignoring the way the hard, sensitive skin ached to be given attention, stuffed it back into his pants, and then sat up in bed with his head resting against the headboard as he flipped on the television.

About twenty minutes later he began to get worried. It wasn't like Sam to not call to let him know if he was running late. He took out his cellphone and dialed Sam's number. It went straight to voicemail. Why the hell would he turn his phone off? Dean slapped the phone shut and headed for the door.

The first place he checked was the courthouse, only to find that it was closed. That didn't mean that Sam couldn't be there, but he kind of doubted it. He was coming home when he called and sounded like he would have been happy if he'd never had to lay eyes on the place again. Next he drove straight to the library. No freakishly tall Sasquatch was perusing the books and no one working there had seen anyone matching Sam's description. He tried Sam's phone again as he headed out into the parking lot, no longer sure of where to go, but it went straight to voicemail again, so he got back in the Impala and started driving around town. Maybe Sam took a walk. In desperation he even called Donna to see if Sam had stopped by their hotel to check in on them. He hadn't. In about two hours' time, Dean had managed to cover the whole town twice and his head was reeling as he sped off back to the motel, ready to start a full-fledged manhunt. He was a little surprised then, when he marched into the motel room to find Sam standing there and idly flexing his arm.

"Sam? Where the hell you been man, I've been trying to call you for hours!"

Sam gave him a look of wide-eyed shock and then quickly pointed over to a bag on the nightstand. "I picked up some food. Bacon burger turbo, large chilly cheese fry? Right?"

Dean scowled and took off his coat as Sam smiled apologetically and held out the bag. He'd been worried sick and Sam had just been dicking around getting them dinner. He was beginning to feel a little ridiculous for feeling so anxious, but why the fuck couldn't the kid have turned on his phone? He grabbed the bag out of Sam's hands.

"Sorry man, really." Sam started putting on his over shirt. "I just lost track of time, didn't mean to freak you out."

Lost track of time? Lost track of time doing what? Sam never just 'lost track of time;' if he wasn't answering his phone and he wasn't in immediate danger then it meant that he simply wanted to be left alone, like after they had an especially nasty fight, or that time he'd had sex with Madison, or when he was sneaking around with Ruby and drinking demon's blood. He was certain that Sam wasn't doing anything behind his back, but he still couldn't help but feel a little angry at his brother's sudden elusiveness.

"Thanks." He didn't even try to keep the annoyance from his voice as he opened the bag and looked down at his food. "Don't know why it took you two hours, but thanks."

"Oh! You're gonna wanna eat that on the road."

Dean abruptly stopped taking the food out of the bag and shifted his eyes over to Sam confusedly. "Why?"

"Well…the maid came in, saw that…" Dean shifted his eyes over to where Sam was pointing to the litany of weapons he'd just cleaned, "…and now they're all kinda freaking out."

"Why'd you let the maid in?"

"It just happened!"

What? How the fuck does something like that 'just happen?' Did the maid muscle past him while on some clean towel crusade? Well, whatever the reason they were probably about five minutes away from having a really uncomfortable conversation with either the motel manager or the cops, so they had to leave. He could kill Sam later. "Whatever. I gotta hit the head and then we're taking off."

His back was turned to him as he headed to the bathroom, but he could have sworn that he heard a smile in Sam's voice as he called out, "Alright, I'll be outside!"

Five minutes later after he'd come outside and Sam had asked to drive the car only to promptly reverse it into a dumpster, Dean was more angry and confused with Sam than he'd been in a while. So the kid suddenly forgot how to keep maids out and drive a car? Whatever; it had been a pretty long day and Sam had told him as he was coming home that his eyes were swimming from all the research. Coming from a kid who loved books almost as much as he loved his car, that could have only meant that he was tired as hell; maybe he should cut him some slack. He looked at Sam from the corner of his eye; he still looked upset about the car.

"It's okay, Sam; I don't think you did any damage."

Sam held up his hands defensively. "Man, I am so sorry. I just – I wasn't thinking!"

"I said it's fine." He paused. "I can't help but wonder though, you know, with letting the maid in and everything, were you just trying to make us get another motel because you were still pissed about the beds?"

"No! No, I was…" Sam paused, looking a little confused, "fine with the beds. The maid just really took me by surprise. Sorry about that."

Dean took one of his hands off the steering wheel and held it up. "It's fine. Just…stop apologizing, okay?"

"Sure, sorry." Dean glared at him and Sam returned a scared look. "Sor – I mean, yeah, sure, no problem."

Dean frowned and looked back at the windshield. "I saw a place just outside town, we should be coming up on it any second, whatd'ya say we stop there for the night and we can keep digging tomorrow morning."

"Sure."

"Great."

Sure enough, he turned the corner and the sign for Cloverleaf Motel was right in front of him. As he pulled into the parking lot, he heard Sam scoff. "Man, I heard this place has bugs. One of my friends said –"

Dean cocked an eyebrow and shot him an inquisitive look and Sam quickly shut his mouth. "What friends?"

"Um, you know, it was from way back; long time ago."

Dean nodded slowly, feeling strangely suspicious without fully knowing why. "You mean from when we were out here before?"

"Um…yeah, yeah, from before."

Dean shut off the engine. "Huh. I didn't know you had any friends from the first time we were here. Good for you. Why don't you check us in; I'm gonna go get our stuff."

Sam's eyes widened. "Oh, right, sure." He lifted his ass from the seat and pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, then opened it up and dug around inside it for a moment. "Oh, cool, I have a credit card!" Sam smiled and held the card up to Dean, who returned an open-mouthed stare and Sam's smile faded as he quickly put the card back. He cleared his throat. "So, I'll go…" With that, he abruptly opened the door and power-walked to the manager's office.

Dean stared after him. Okay. Weird. He opened the trunk, grabbed their duffels, and waited for his brother to come out of the office, which he did just a minute later.

Sam handed him his key. "We're in room 117, first floor by the ice machine."

Dean led the way and opened the door first and when he turned on the light, he immediately cast Sam a confused look. "Two queens?"

Sam grinned. "Yeah. We're lucky; they said this was the last room they had. There's some couples' retreat happening this week. Pretty cool, huh? Last room!"

Dean threw his duffel on the floor beside one of the beds. "Yeah, I guess." Queens really weren't that bad; he and Sam could fit on a queen, not like those full-sized beds at the Lucky Star. He slid his over-shirt from his shoulders and then pulled his t-shirt over his head. "So, I'm gonna take a shower."

Sam looked up from where he was busy unpacking his duffel and shrugged. "Okay." He then looked back down and continued what he was doing as if nothing had happened.

Dean unlaced and removed his boots, waiting for Sam to start undressing. "Don't you want a shower?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, but I can wait until you're done; I gotta unpack anyway."

Dean took off his socks and then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and pushed them and his boxers to the floor. "You sure?"

Sam once again looked up at him and, at seeing his naked body, quickly looked down at the floor. "Yeah, I'm sure. Go ahead."

Dean shifted his eyes back and forth and warily eyed up his brother. "You feeling okay?"

Sam looked up and smiled at him, showing all his teeth. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Ookay. Be out in a bit."

He walked around Sam, who was still resolutely staring at the floor, and into the bathroom. So, it was starting to look like he might not get laid tonight, after all. Well, maybe he just needed to try a different tactic. If Sam was reluctant to have sex then maybe it was because he really wanted to top. They'd only done it that way once and he could already tell how much Sam loved it. Honestly, he'd expected Sam to complain when he'd told him not to expect it again for a while; if he'd put up a fight, then he could still bottom 'as a favor to Sam' and not have to admit how much he actually wanted it. But Sam hadn't taken the bait. Well, he could work around that.

Fifteen minutes later, Dean walked out of the bathroom still dripping wet from head to toe. Sam was sitting up in bed still fully dressed and thumbing through one of the few books he'd managed to keep through their travels; an old, worn, dogged-eared copy of The Great Gatsby. Sam looked up at him and Dean returned his stare as he began to slowly run a towel down his chest. "Sam, I'm done," he said in a low voice. "It's all yours." He dropped the towel and then bent over to get inside his duffel bag, making sure his ass was out as far as possible, and then moved it from side to side a little as he pretended to need to shift his weight to dig through his bag. "Feel free to go in if you want."

Sam stood up, shucked off his t-shirt, picked up a change of clothes he had laid out on the bed, and walked past him and into the bathroom. "Okay, thanks." After a second he ducked his head out. "Oh, and in case you're asleep by the time I come out, goodnight."

Dean snatched a pair of boxers from his bag, hurriedly put them on, and frowned. "Goodnight, Sam."

Sam smiled and then ducked back into the bathroom and closed the door behind him and Dean crawled into bed and turned off the light, feeling rejected and idiotic.


	30. Dazed and Confused

Dean's shovel hit the hard-packed earth in Donna's basement and he needed to stand on the spade to get it to properly sink down. He rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath; digging graves under normal circumstances was frustrating but after last night, he was feeling especially grumpy. Maybe he shouldn't be so mad at Sam for refusing him sex, but he just couldn't help it. Sam had never turned him down for it before. If he'd at least told him that he really did know where Maggie Briggs was planted then he could have spent the night working out his energy by digging her up, but instead he'd lied about it for some unknown reason and didn't tell him what he knew until the next day. On top of everything it wasn't exactly helping that all day he'd been taking his frustrations out a little on Sam only to be met with uncharacteristic cheeriness from him as he bounced at his side, laughed at his jokes and suddenly pretended to like his music. Was he pissed off that Sam was in a good mood? Maybe; it was confusing and weird and Sam never behaved like this, so it almost felt like he was acting extra cheery just to piss him off. Add to that that he was somehow simultaneously being weirdly distant, like he was around but not really with him. When Dean had woken up that morning he was sure that Sam was gone but then he'd looked over at the other bed and saw him still sleeping right beside him. Except, even though he was looking right at him it still felt like he wasn't exactly there somehow. He hadn't even known that Sam was capable of that kind of emotional distance. And he'd been acting weird in other ways lately too, like saying shit like, "Master Chief is in the house, bizatches!" When the fuck did Sam ever use the word 'bizatches?' Something was wrong, wasn't adding up, he just wasn't sure how yet, but all the guesswork he'd been having to do about Sam's behavior had him wanting to hit him with the shovel. He threw back several more shovelfuls of dirt and caught the first glimpse of the white bones from Maggie's body. Thank God; he just had to dig a little deeper and then all they'd have to do was light her up and this damn hunt would be over.

"Hey man," Sam's voice sounded scared and unsure from behind him. "I'm really sorry about this."

"Sorry about what?" Dean kept his voice even and his hands busy so as not to give away how interested he was in whatever Sam was going to say next. Could he be apologizing for last night? Was he maybe even going to give an explanation as to what the hell was going on with him lately? He heard a loud 'thump' behind him and he saw Sam slumped against a barrel near the wall, his face contorted in pain.

"Sam!" He dropped his shovel, rushed over, and quickly helped Sam to his feet. "Are you okay?"

Sam's eyes were wide with terror. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"Wait – wait – wait, we still gotta burn the body, you idiot!"

Sam nodded and raced over to the corpse and Dean began to follow until he felt something unseen shove him and the next second he was flying backwards through the air. His back hit the wall hard and he fell to the ground. Shit, his back was going to be one big, angry purple bruise in the morning and his ankle was going to need some ice. He bit back a groan and jumped to his feet, only to look up and see a dirty, muddy-faced, and clearly pissed Maggie Briggs standing before him. She came rushing at him and he had nowhere to go, his back shoved up against the wall and no weapon in sight that he could use to defend himself. His heart thudded painfully against his ribs and he closed his eyes and braced himself for the inevitable and excruciating pain of his death. In the next second, he felt heat, flame, fire, and heard a loud scream, but surprisingly no pain. He opened his eyes and scanned his eyes and hands down his body. He was in one piece. In front of him, Sam was standing above the burning body with a can of lighter fluid in his hand and a big, goofy grin on his face.

"Dude! That was sweet!"

Dean gave him a sarcastic half-smile. Sweet? Uh, sure, if that's what he wants to call it. "Yeah, great, let's just get the hell outta here, huh? I'll call Donna and tell her the job's done. She can decide what she wants to do with the big, charred hole in her basement later. C'mon."

Still grinning, Sam happily jumped down from his perch on top of the grave, threw their supplies back into their duffel, and waited for Dean to lead the way. As they walked out the front door, he tossed Sam the keys to the Impala, who caught them easily and immediately began putting their supplies away in the trunk while Dean dug through his pockets, looking for his phone. After 45 seconds, he'd checked every pocket in his jacket and pants but came out empty.

"Dude, where's my phone?"

Sam gaped at him for a second and then firmly shut his mouth and shoved the shovel all the way in the back of the trunk, where they never kept it, before taking out the salt, which never left the duffel, and placing it next to the shotguns. "I don't know."

"Well, let me borrow your phone for a sec; I gotta call Donna and let her know that her family can move back into their house."

Sam half-heartedly reached into his pocket and then quickly took it out and slammed the trunk closed. "Um, I don't think I have my phone."

Dean frowned. "Okay; I'll just get into the glove box and whip out Dad's old cell."  
Sam's eyes went big and he walked a step towards him and held out his hand. "No!"

"What?"

Sam quickly put his hand back down to his side. "I mean…" He smiled. "Let's go over to see her; I'd like to see her again before we leave."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Sam shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Yeah; why not?"

Dean slowly shook his head. "Okay; whatever you want, Sam."

Visiting Donna hadn't taken long and Sam was right; it was kinda nice to see her again, even if it was just a little awkward because of the way Dean felt he had to behave himself around Sam. It wasn't that he wanted to bang Donna; because of the husband and kids, that was out of the question, even if he wasn't with Sam. But he didn't need Sam even remotely suspecting otherwise, especially with how jealous he'd acted earlier about that crush he'd had on her, like, a hundred years ago. If Sam thought he might pull any of his old shit…well, he wasn't even going to think about it. So he'd sat on the couch of Donna's family's suite, making sure to sit so close to Sam that their shoulders touched, and politely smiled and nodded while Donna thanked them both profusely for saving their family. When they went to leave, Donna had gone in for a hug, which Dean half-heartedly returned with only one arm. Sam, however, hugged her with relish while he wore a wide smile and thanked her for seeing them.

When they left the house, Sam was smiling. "So, what do you wanna do next?"

Dean eyed up Sam's curious, eager face. No way was the kid putting on an act; even after last night, he seriously didn't think anything was wrong between them. Alright then; time to go for the direct approach. He shrugged. "You wanna have sex?"

.

Gary's eyes lit up as he looked at his cool, male-model looking companion. Dean Winchester was by far the most awesome guy in the world. He hadn't gotten mad at him when he'd messed up his car, gave him a gun, took him on an awesome…what were they called…hunts? … and now he was going to help him get laid. He'd never gotten to do any of this stuff before! This was seriously the coolest day ever. And, wearing a body like this Sam guy's, he was bound to get some action from some kind of beautiful lady.

"Hell yeah I wanna have sex!"

Dean visibly relaxed. "Good. I was starting to think you weren't interested."

"Oh no! I'm always interested. Where do you want to go?"

Dean frowned and raised an eyebrow. "I thought we'd go back to the motel."

Gary nearly laughed at Dean's confusion. Well, of course, naturally they'd go back to the motel after they found a couple of babes…well, whichever one of them couldn't go home with the chick at least, but Dean was thinking way too far ahead. "Well, yeah, but we gotta go somewhere else first. What were you thinking? A bar?"

Dean's face for some reason went even more confused than before and his jaw dropped a little. Hadn't he explained himself clearly enough? Or did people not really go to bars if they wanted to hook up? Was that maybe some sort of movie myth he hadn't known about? "Sure, Sam, if you wanna go to a bar, we can do that. I'm a little hungry anyway. You wanna eat?"

"Yeah, sure, sounds great, I'm starving!"

.

The waitress came up to their table wearing a predatory smile. Dean eyed up her face; mid-thirties and not hot but kind of cute: pretty eyes, nice mouth. A quick glance down her body told him that she didn't have too bad a figure, either. She turned her head towards him and lifted an eyebrow, silently asking him if he saw anything he liked and he nearly let himself smirk at her as he felt his self-esteem temporarily lift, before stopping himself at the last moment and plastering on a polite smile. It was great to know he was still attractive to women, but he didn't need to piss Sam off just so some random chick could stroke his ego. Nope; Sam was all he needed. _That's right; just Sam, no one else. Not even flirting. No chicks. No flirting. Bad Dean._

"You boys here by yourselves tonight?" Her smile looked hopeful as she eyed the both of them up and it made Dean break out in a genuine grin.

"We're here together." Fuck, that was still weird to say that out loud. After all, what did she think – _It doesn't matter worth a damn what she thinks. It's none of her business what we do; just mine and Sam's._ He smiled extra wide and looked over at Sam, expecting his usual look of shock whenever Dean publicly announced them as a couple, but didn't find it. Sam looked maybe a little confused but otherwise unaffected by his statement as he smiled at the waitress.

Her mouth worked itself into an 'O' and her eyes widened a little. "Oh, wow. That's…" he saw her scan her eyes down Sam's body and the smile returned. "Really cool."

Dean shook his head and coughed into his hand to keep himself from laughing. "Hey, sweetheart, could you please bring him a beer and I'll have a beer and two shots of whiskey?"

Sam's face lit up. "Two shots of whiskey for me too, please."

"Sure thing, guys."

She left and Dean cocked an eyebrow at Sam. "You're drinking? You?"

"Yeah, why not?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Just don't drink too much; don't want you passing out on me before the fun begins."

Sam grinned extra wide, kind of like he used to when he was a kid, and let out a little giggle as if he was twelve and Dean had just told him a dirty joke. "Don't worry about that; tonight is going to be awesome." He looked cautiously around the bar. "Lot of people here tonight."

Dean glanced around and nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

"So…" Sam leaned forward. "I think that waitress was checking you out."

He shrugged. "Yeah, she was. Doesn't matter though; you know I'm not interested."

"Right." Sam took another look around the room and then the waitress returned with their drinks.

Fifteen minutes later, Dean watched with utmost fascination as Sam picked up his bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. This felt like something that should be filmed for its historical significance. He probably should have cancelled his order; after all, Sam was almost definitely going to take one bite of his meal and disgustedly shove it aside. Sam hadn't eaten any fatty red meat in so long that he wasn't even sure how his body was going to take it. He took a swig of his beer and raised a skeptical eyebrow as his brother moaned in pleasure when he bit down.

"Mm! The bread alone!"

While still chewing his first bite, Sam eagerly scooped up some greasy curly fries and shoved them into his mouth. Dean tipped back his beer and quickly downed the rest of it, suddenly feeling distressed. He'd never realized just how much he would miss Sam if he suddenly changed. He missed seeing Sam's usual introspective, pissy demeanor after finishing a hunt and hearing him complain about his music while in the car. He couldn't stand the way he'd recently been checking himself out in the mirror and commenting about how good he looked instead of hiding his face behind his hair and blushing when he caught someone checking out his ass. For the love of Christ, Dean had just ordered the unhealthiest thing he could think of just to see Sam's bitchface and hear him give a lecture about healthy eating habits! It was absolutely crazy, he knew, but those were some of the things that he loved most about him; they were the things that made Sam _Sammy_.

"What's the matter, Dean? Aren't you gonna eat?"

Dean blinked and shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. "Yeah, just thinking is all."

He'd set himself up for Sam to take an easy shot at him, but surprisingly he just smiled around another mouthful of food, nodded his head, and kept eating. Dean picked up his burger and took a bite; it wasn't bad, but without Sam's disgusted face staring at him, a lot of the food's appeal had suddenly been lost. He put the burger down, threw back another shot of whiskey, and then waited for the waitress to come around so he could order more. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he barely heard Sam when he excused himself and got up from the table.

Dean took another bite of his burger as Sam stood up. "You're going to the bar? Get me another beer, would ya?"

"Sure thing, Dean."

Dean settled in his chair and went back to eating his burger. He was going to have to talk to Sam about this sooner or later. Maybe after sex? He hated the thought of killing the afterglow with a serious discussion but Sam was always all gooey and touchy-feely afterwards, so it would probably be the best time to talk. And maybe it didn't have to be a big deal, either; he could just lay behind Sam, take his nearly boneless body into his arms, and then just casually ask him what had been going on with him lately. If he gave Sam a couple of really good orgasms first then he would be so tired and blissed out that it wouldn't even occur to him to get his hackles up over the question, especially since the kid was already a little drunk…

He checked his watch; it was getting kind of late. As soon as Sam got back to the bar they'd better start heading out. Where the hell was Sam, anyway? He'd been gone a while. He looked back to the bar. Some blonde cougar was raking her eyes down Sam's body in a way that made his stomach twist a little just to watch, but Sam didn't seem to mind. Dean stared on with his mouth agape. Alright, so Sam sometimes did air on the side of stupid when it came to knowing when a woman was hitting on him, but this was pretty obvious. And, wait a minute, was he actually preening for miss Cougartown, with a…dear God, please tell him that wasn't an umbrella in his drink.

Sam stood up from his barstool and stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar as he grabbed the front of his jacket and preened once more for Cougartown before they both began heading towards him. Dean kept his eyes on Sam as she left the bar ahead of him. Sam pushed the door open and then looked up at him with wide, eager eyes.

"We're gonna do it!" Sam stuck out his tongue, pumped his fist into the air, and then practically dance-stepped out of the bar.

Dean stared after him in shock. Sam was _cheating on him_? So, it was… _over_ between them? No, that was impossible; Sam could be a dick, but he would've at least told him what he'd done wrong…right? What had he done wrong? He'd been faithful…hell, he wasn't even flirting with chicks anymore. He'd done everything he'd asked and given him everything he wanted, up to and including every part of his body. He'd done things with Sam that he'd never done before and would never do again with anyone else. Dean really hadn't been carrying around any illusions about being Sam's last lover – he knew Sam would leave him sooner or later, he just hadn't realized it would be this much sooner. And to do it this way – he'd seen it with his own eyes and he couldn't believe it. It just wasn't like Sam. Before this, he was pretty sure Sam had never been unfaithful to anyone. Hell, after Jessica, it had taken almost a year before he even seriously _looked_ at anyone else. It just wasn't like Sam to mess around. But he'd just walked out the door with someone else. Dean furrowed his eyes together and parted his lips. It wasn't like Sam. The constant preening in the mirror, the car, the burger, the way he'd felt like he wasn't really there, even when he was standing right in front of him… Wait a second, like he wasn't really there… A memory came to him from a few months back of sitting in a motel room with Cas while Sam was out getting salt. He'd said something… _That hole you feel when Sam isn't around is your soul crying out for its complement_ … Son of a bitch. It wasn't Sam.


	31. Family Matters

Dean threw some money down on the table and ran out of the bar. Sam – or, whatever the hell that thing was – was gone by the time Dean ran out to the parking lot. He began to pace, feeling a little desperate with worry while at the same time practically shaking with relief. That thing he was riding beside wasn't Sam. He needed to find him…All that shit that had happened wasn't really…Sam wasn't – hadn't – not even right at this moment he wasn't…with that woman and not him…he might be in trouble…he needed to get to Sam…Sam still wanted him… if that thing hurt him, so help him God…

He ran to the Impala and threw open the glove box. Other than a few papers, fake IDs, a small pistol, and the car's owner's manual it was empty; every single cell phone was gone. Of course, that was why it wanted to see Donna so badly. Sam had no way to get ahold of him…which meant he was probably alive somewhere if that thing was going to such lengths to keep him from contacting the outside world. Unless… No. No, he wasn't even going to entertain the thought. Sam was fine. He took a deep breath. Okay, first things first – if he was going to find Sam, first he needed to know what he was dealing with. What was it? What did it want? He mentally ran down the list. It probably wasn't a demon – Sam's tattoo protected him against possession. Maybe it was a shapeshifter? Possible, but if that was the case, then what was its motivation? From the way it'd been acting, it certainly hadn't shifted into Sam to try and date him. Maybe it had a vendetta? That was possible; he and Sam could have killed a cousin of his or something, but even that seemed a little far-fetched; shifters were usually pretty solitary, traveling alone with no sense of friends or family. It could be a revenant or a ghoul if Sam was already… nope, okay then, not a revenant or ghoul. He drummed his fingers against his thigh and twitched in agitation. Ah, fuck it; he could be standing around all night trying to figure out what the hell it was, but the only way to find out for sure would be to do some tests. That thing, whatever it was, it'd be back to take whatever it wanted from him. Most things wanted to either eat or kill him, so those two were probably the safest bets. But when it came back, he'd be prepared.

.

An hour later, Dean and what he now knew was a seventeen-year-old kid Gary wearing Sam's meat-suit pulled the Impala in to the empty driveway of a house, a plain rancher with gray siding that looked nearly identical to every other house on the street. Ignoring the horrible pain in his stomach that he'd felt since fifteen minutes ago when he'd been attacked by that demon who used his stomach as a soccer ball before he and Gary had managed to exercise it, he turned to warily eye up Gary. "So, Sam's here?"

"Yeah." It was weird seeing Sam prune up his face thoughtfully and look at him concernedly knowing that the kid inside wasn't actually Sam. "Maybe you should go to the hospital. That demon kicked you pretty hard and I'm no doctor, but the blood in your mouth is a pretty bad sign."

Dean waved his hand dismissively. "I'll be fine, at least until I get to Sam." He pulled out his gun and aimed it at the kid. "Come on. You lead, I'll follow."

Gary stared at the gun in terror. "You're not…I mean, you're not going to shoot me, are you?"

Dean cocked it. "Wait around and we'll see."

Gary threw open the door, jumped out of the car, and raced up to the house. He knelt down by the shrubs, picked up a small, fake rock, twisted it open, and then pulled out a key, which he quickly jammed into the lock and then he practically ran inside, leaving the door open. Dean smirked in amusement and then winced and held an arm over his stomach as he quickly followed. The moment he got to the bottom of the stairs in the finished basement, he saw two things; a blond, curly-haired kid lying face down on the floor with a puddle of blood underneath him and some shrimpy kid wearing a blue and black striped hoodie and padded, blue, sleeveless vest, tied to a pole and trying feverishly to free himself. Dean felt a wave of elation and a strange tug towards the kid on the pole and instantly knew that he'd found Sam.

The kid tied to the pole snapped his head up and immediately locked his eyes on him. "Dean! Help me out!" He struggled even harder against his restraints. "Dean, it's me!"

Dean hurriedly stepped over the body and raced to his side. "I know." He quickly undid the restraints and then knelt down and let his eyes scan down his body. "You're not hurt, are you?"

Sam shook his head and then Dean heard a retching noise to his left. He and Sam both looked over to see the dead kid, now turned over onto his back, hazel eyes clouded over and fixed in death, and displaying an impressive, fist-sized hole in his stomach. His intestines lay beside him in the middle of a huge, bloody stain saturating the carpet underneath. And close by, Sam's body was heaving up his bacon cheeseburger and fries. "Oh my god," he sobbed, "Trevor! Nora said, Nora said she did it, but…Oh god! It's so – it's so…"

Dean stood up and tried not to wince in pain as he began walking toward him. "Brutal? Bloody? Terrible? Well, I got news for ya, kid." He clapped his hand on Gary's shoulder and Sam's body jumped in terror. "Me and him, that's our lives. So maybe you should think twice before you decide to just jump inside someone else's body. And do your homework before you decide to just start making deals with demons; they're not the fine, upstanding, caring souls you seem to think they are."

Tears were pouring down the boy's cheeks. "I never thought they were good; I guess I just thought I could get something out of it and maybe my life wouldn't be so crappy."

Dean scowled. "Well, chin up; it gets worse."

Behind him, he heard Sam's reprimanding, bitchy tone in Gary's young voice. "Dean."

Dean wheeled on Sam and, despite everything, had to bite back the smirk at seeing Sam's classic bitchface painted all over this kid's expression. "What? It's true! He's lucky he and his little friends didn't get us all killed!" He sighed and grabbed Gary by his ginormous, trembling elbow. "Come on; we'll take care of the body." He turned to Sam. "What do you want to do?"

Sam looked thoughtful. "Even if it's terrible, the parents deserve to know what happened to their kid."

Dean nodded in agreement. "Be sure to wipe that pole, the banister, and the front door of all prints; I'll get Gary in the car and call the cops." He took a step forward and then doubled over at the surge of pain in his stomach.

"Dean!" Sam rushed to him and put a comforting hand on his back. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Sammy."

From above him, Gary pointed in his direction. "That demon kicked him, had to be a dozen times, in the stomach."

Sam nodded. "Blood?"

"Coming out of his mouth."

Sam sighed. "Great. Okay. Can you…" Sam paused for a long moment and Dean looked over to see him suspiciously eyeing up Gary. "Can you just hold him here for a second while I wipe off some prints before we go to the hospital?"

Gary nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, of course."

Sam nodded but stood still. "The kid's harmless, Sam," Dean groaned out as he held his stomach and once again felt the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "Go ahead and wipe the damn prints."

"Okay." Dean tightly shut his eyes and tried to work through the pain as he heard Sam scurrying about the house. A minute later, a small arm quickly wrapped around his middle just underneath the shoulders and hauled him up and the three of them began their journey up the stairs. "Don't think you can get anywhere with my body, Gary, because if you try, I will shoot you."

.

It was only a few hours till dawn before the three of them got back to the motel room where Nora, wrapped up in a blanket, still wide awake and looking scared as hell, was sitting up on Sam's bed, waiting for them. Her eyes followed Sam as he walked by while still in Gary's body, paying no attention to her at all except for an acknowledging glance and then ducked her head as Sam's body turned to look at her and give her a shy wave. Gary frowned and pruned up his eyebrows at Nora's response and then he walked to the middle of the room. They'd already gotten all the necessary ingredients to do the spellwork and Sam grabbed a couple of pillows to throw on the floor while Dean got a large bowl and thrust it and the ingredients into Gary's hands.

"Better get it right, kid."

Gary nodded and then quickly set the bowl on the ground between him and Sam and got to work. About fifty words of Latin later, Dean saw both of them cover their eyes as if a bright light was before them and then Sam's body broodily sighed and Dean opened his mouth in astonishment as he felt himself suddenly filled with amazing peace. He jumped to his feet, ready to run over to Sam and take him into his arms as his little brother ran over to the mirror and examined his face but instead he balled his hands up into fists, restraining himself.

"So, we good?"

Sam turned his relieved face towards him and sighed. "Yeah, we're good."

.

As the four of them stood outside Gary's parents' house in the dark and the rain, Dean listened to Sam's little speech he was giving Gary with exceptional interest. Sam stared at the kid and shrugged. "I'm telling you, kid - I wish I had your life."

Gary smiled reluctantly. "You do?" Sam nodded and the kid's smile broke out into a full-on grin. "Thanks."

Sam grinned back and motioned dismissively at him. "Get out of here."

Gary bounded towards the house and Nora, not bothering to give the two of them another backwards glance and Dean smiled. "That was a nice thing to say."

Sam opened the car door. "I totally lied. That kid's life sucked ass." Sam quickly got inside the car, while Dean stood outside for a few extra seconds feeling a little shocked and trying to process what Sam had just said. He'd seemed pretty damn sincere and as a teenager Sam would have probably had a wet dream over just imagining being a kid in some normal, apple-pie family like Gary's. Did he honestly not want that anymore? He'd wanted it for so long, and deserved it too after everything they'd been through, after everything he'd dragged him through. Dean shrugged and got into the car. Sam looked at him as soon as he was inside and shook his head. "All that apple-pie, family crap? It's stressful. Trust me - we didn't miss a damn thing."

Huh. Well, maybe Sam was right, or maybe he was wrong. After everything they'd seen and experienced growing up, he doubted Sam actually could ever feel comfortable with real normality. Maybe if he was settled down in some kind of safe but not normal arrangement then… He glanced at the house one last time. It was a nice little place, probably with a small backyard that had a grill. He could see Sam living there, getting plates out of the kitchen to go to the backyard where he was grilling steaks. Hmm. Grilling steaks in the backyard. No hunting. No fear. No running. No more violence, death, and pain. Just him and Sam; their own family.

He stared off, a little lost in thought. "Or we don't know what we're missing."

His eyes shifted slightly over to Sam, who he saw had turned his head slowly to him, suspicion etched on his face and Dean quickly looked forward and turned the key, realizing he'd said too much. As Dean put the car into reverse and he and Sam backed out of Gary's driveway, Sam scrunched up his face in disgust at the classic rock song playing on the radio. "Aww, come on man, turn it down."

Dean turned to Sam and saw his bitchface, then turned the music back down to a low volume and sighed to keep the smile off his face. "Welcome back, Kotter."

He pulled out onto the street and sped out of the neighborhood. They had no new hunts to focus on but their stuff was packed up in the back already and they needed to get moving; if that demon bitch they'd exercised managed to talk to any of her friends who were still topside, then he and Sam were in for a one hell of a fight if they stuck around the area any longer. He stared at the road and focused on driving to no place in particular. Maybe they'd just keep heading south, head through Rhode Island and then stop for a nap in the car someplace in New York where it was scenic and quiet; that sounded nice…

Sam's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Do you feel like you're missing something, Dean?"

Dean briefly looked over at Sam's thoughtful expression and then looked back to the road and shifted uncomfortably. "Huh? No."

"You sure? You're not maybe thinking about," he shook his head and inhaled sharply, "Lisa and Ben?"

Dean stared open-mouthed at Sam. "Lisa and Ben?"

Sam nodded. "I still remember that dream."

"Oh, come on! You can't hold that against me! That was like being roofied, man; I can't help the shit that comes out in my dreams! And besides, that was before we ever even got together!"

"Yeah, I know, but Dean – "

"No, okay? Not anymore. Now, that's all I'm gonna say, because I don't want to talk about it."

"I wouldn't get mad at you if that was what you wanted."

"I said 'no,' Sam! I don't want to talk about it! Alright?"

Sam sighed. "Alright fine, whatever. I don't want to fight about it."

"Well, good."

Sam was quiet for another several minutes. "So, what happened while I was, you know, checked out of my body?"

Dean clenched his jaw, not enjoying the change in topic much more than the previous conversation. "Not much. Salted and burned the body. You, ah, you have some cuts on your upper bicep where I had to test to make sure your body was, well, you."

Sam looked Dean over for a second and then smirked. "You hit on him, didn't you?" Dean clamped his jaw shut and kept his eyes plastered to the road and Sam laughed. "Oh my God, you did!"

"I thought it was you!" he barked.

"So…did you get lucky?"

"No, but you did."

"What?"

"We went to a bar and that kid, he left with some old cougar saying that he was going to, and I quote, 'do it' with her."

"What?" Sam whipped out his phone and scrolled through his contact list. "I swear to God!" He put the phone to his ear and waited.

Dean grinned, happy for the distraction. "Put him on speaker."

Sam hit a button and Dean could then hear the rings…one…two… and then Gary's voice on the other end. "Sam?"

"Hey Gary, got a question for you. Did you, um, have sex with someone while you were in my body?"

A pause. "No."

"Gary." Sam's voice took on a menacing edge. "I'm not fooling around, here. Dean said you left the bar with someone. Did you have sex with someone while you were in my body? Because, I swear to god, if I have to get tested for gonorrhea again…"

"Again? – No! Okay, no, I didn't, I swear! I'll tell you – I'll tell you everything, just please don't hurt me!"

"Talk."

"We – we left the bar…Nora, uh, could you excuse me a second, thanks." There was a pause and then, in more hushed tones, "we left the bar and we went back to her place. She said she had to go to the bathroom and while she was there I got naked and got into her bed but when she came out…dude, it was just too much. She was wearing some bondage outfit or something and a riding crop and it scared the hell outta me. I just grabbed my clothes and got the hell outta there as fast as I could. That's all that happened, that's all, I swear!"

By now, Dean's body was shaking with silent laughter and even Sam put on a little smile but he kept his voice stern. "You'd better be telling the truth."

"I am! I am!" Light sobbing was heard on the other end. "I swear to God, I am!"

"Okay, alright, it's okay, calm down. Thanks. Have a good night, Gary." Sam slapped the phone shut, relaxed in his chair, and shut his eyes. "Thank God." Dean grinned and then impulsively pulled the car over and put it in park. Sam looked around and crinkled his eyes in confusion. "Dean, what're we –"

Dean slid over to him and kissed him fiercely on the mouth. "I knew you wouldn't, Sammy, I knew you wouldn't do that."

Sam cupped Dean's face in his hands and used his fingertips to lightly massage his jaw. "Of course I wouldn't, Dean."

Dean pushed some hair out of Sam's face. He nodded. "Just you and me, Sammy."

Sam's eyes suddenly looked a little distant and thoughtful, but he nodded and smiled. "Yeah Dean, just you and me."


	32. Fatal Attraction

A neon sign hanging off of an old, worn-down brick building alongside the highway cast lurid light into the Impala. Dean eyed up the sign as they drove by: "Live Girls" was printed three times in bright red letters beside the blue outline of a mud flap girl. Years of ingrained habit told him to turn into the parking lot, but instead he kept his hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel at ten and two and held his breath as he waited to pass it. Inside that building was the promise of naked skin and smooth little curves, lithe bodies and round breasts that would dance in front of him onstage if he just handed over a little money. He didn't want to touch, wouldn't be found in some backroom getting a private show or paying extra for any favors; he had Sam for that and all that stuff wasn't the big appeal for him any longer. But he did kind of want to look. It had been so long since he'd even seen a naked woman, in porn, on a stage, or otherwise. He considered how fun it would be fun if Sam went in with him so they could kick back with a couple of beers and idly ogle the women together, make comments about who was hot, maybe even sit by the stage for a little bit, but he knew there was no way that was happening. Sam hated going to strip-bars even before they were together and that one time they went to one to work a case Sam had sat there like a monk, all business and purposely not enjoying himself while he looked around only as much as was absolutely necessary to observe people and find the siren they were hunting. Well, whatever; he'd known Sam a long time before this thing started between them, he knew what a killjoy Sam could be, and he knew what he was signing up when he'd agreed to be with him.

Sam looked at him questioningly and gestured towards the building. "Dean, are you thinking of, uh…"

His voice was quiet and calm but Dean straightened, smiled sheepishly at Sam, and hit the gas pedal a little harder. "Nope; wasn't thinking of anything." He cleared his throat. "Except that we've been on the road for two days I'm feeling tired and grimy as hell, and I don't wanna sleep in the car again."

Sam nodded and then opened up the glove box and pulled out a map. "What was the name of that last town we passed?"

"Vail."

"Okay." Sam lightly ran a fingertip along a path on the map. "Looks like we're maybe about a half hour outside of Tucson; we could find a place to stay the night?"

Dean nodded and sped up the car even more, truly anxious to get to a motel so he could get a shower and some sleep. They checked into a half-decent looking place for once; the walls were a freshly painted muted pink, which matched the bedspread and furniture and the carpet didn't even have any stains on it. Sam lay salt at the door while Dean headed straight for the bed and sat down. The mattress felt soft and comfortable under his weight. Dean laid down across it and felt his body relax against the soft springs.

"Aww Sammy, you gotta try this out; this bed is awesome!"

Sam finished salting the last entrance and then began rooting through his duffel. After a minute of searching, he looked up and pruned up his face in thought. "Yeah, maybe later. Hey, where's the power cord to my laptop?"

Dean's face fell. "I thought you packed it."

"Shit." Sam stood up and held out his hand. "Keys." Dean quickly fished through his pocket and tossed them over to him. "My battery's dead, so I can't do any research. I'm gonna go head out and see if I can find a universal one that's not too expensive. Be back in about an hour or so."

Dean closed his eyes. "Mmhm."

The bed was so comfortable, so soft and so nice… A second later, he felt the mattress compress on either side of his head and he felt Sam's nose bump his, followed by a warm, soft, pressure on his lips. Dean kissed back, moving his lips a bit sluggishly in his exhausted state and after a second Sam broke the kiss, stood up, and laughed.

"I'll just leave the lights off."

"I'm not going to bed." Even as he said it, his voice was heavy with sleep and he knew he was lying; after two days on the road with little to no rest he was crashing fast. Sam switched off the lights, stepped out the door, and the retreating low rumble of the Impala's engine hadn't faded away from the lot for longer than thirty seconds before he felt the heavy, comforting veil of sleep overcome him.

.

He was standing in the corner of a low-lit room. It was filled with men staring at a woman in heavy make-up, a sexy little red outfit, and devil horns who was dancing on a lit stage across the room. Tables sat around the stage and on every wall were pictures of scantily clad or naked women. He was in a strip-bar. Huh, he must have fallen asleep. He lifted his glass and examined it; it was a lowball glass filled with ice and something brown. He took a sip. Top shelf whiskey, nice and chilled. He lowered his glass and glanced at the stage. Mm, the chick was kinda hot. What the hell, this was all just a dream; he may as well enjoy himself. "Cherry Pie" by Warrant came on and he took another sip of his drink, smiled, and bopped his head to the music.

The woman onstage swiftly moved her arm in a "cut" motion and the music suddenly stopped. Dean looked around in alarm, but none of the other men even seemed to have registered that anything had changed. The woman pointed at him and motioned with her finger for him to come over to her. His eyes grew wide and he pointed to himself. Me? The woman laughed and then gestured around the room and when he looked around again, the club was completely empty. She pointed to the couch in front of her and he grinned, put down his drink, headed over to the stage, and sat down. It was really soft and comfortable, like the mattress at the motel, and he settled into it easily. She smiled seductively at him with brightly painted red lips that matched her outfit and the music resumed. She stepped back several steps and began to dance for him, filthily wiggling and grinding her hips.

"Oh, I take it all back," he murmured, "I love the devil."

Languidly swaying her hips, she walked across the stage and over to him, using her hands and brightly painted red nails to playfully paw at his chest and stomach. She then stroked his chin and ran her fingers across it as if she was about to kiss him, but he knew she wasn't. This was all part of the show, part of the tease that was meant to send that slow, pleasant warmth to his groin with no release. She pulled away and he closed his eyes, enjoying the tease, but when he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that the devil chick wasn't alone. Suddenly a woman with long, curly blonde hair and heavy eyeliner wearing a scanty little angel costume was on stage with her, dancing and grinding up against the other stripper's ass.

Dean grinned wide. "Now that's what I call peace on earth."

The girls came in close to him, their hands descending on his face and both sets of their breasts in his face. Mm, breasts. Fuck, he missed breasts. Both of the girls had nice-sized perky ones, covered by beautiful smooth skin and just barely concealed in their outfits. In the next instant, their faces were level again with him and they were both doing that chin-stroking move and he looked up at them, for the first time feeling a little nervous. What was he going to do if they kissed him? It was just a dream, it wasn't like if he returned it that he would be cheating or anything; it wasn't like he'd actually ever do anything like that in real life. Really, he never, ever would; Sam was all he wanted anymore. But he felt so repressed; it was so nice seeing women, any women, who looked at him like they were, like they were turned on by just looking at him, flattering him and making him feel sexy. Still undecided, he held his breath and slightly parted his lips, waiting for what was going to happen next.

The girls got up and, still smiling, walked away and vanished, leaving Anna standing on the stage, smiling uncomfortably at him in their wake. Shit. Castiel had invaded his head enough times by now for him to know that this was definitely not part of the dream. Her look was slightly reprimanding as she stared at him and he looked back with the face of a guilty child.

"Anna?" He glanced uncomfortably around the room. Shit. Well, this was just embarrassing. "I was just ah…working on a case."

"This is what you dream about." She said it as if she was putting together a puzzle, figuring out a part of him that she'd never seen before and really didn't like.

His eyes grew wide and he blew air out from his cheeks as he watched her shocked face and considered his shitty luck. Why couldn't she have party crashed his head while he was having one of his dreams about fishing or cooking? Still, maybe he should be grateful; after all, there were worse things she could have walked in on that, if she wasn't watching Chuck's visions, he'd have a hard time explaining to his one-time lover. He nodded absent-mindedly at the thought and then looked down at his hands, finding little solace at the thought.

"This is awkward."

In the next moment, she smiled warmly, as if remembering herself, and then walked over to him, sat beside him on the couch, and began to talk.

.

Moments later, a wide-eyed Dean sprung from bed, quickly fished his cell phone from his pocket, and speed-dialed Sam.

"Hey Dean –"

Dean hurriedly cut him off. "I need you here right now!"

"What is it?"

"It's Anna."

"Anna? What's going on? Is she okay?"

"I don't know, she Inception-ed my dream and told me she needs to see us right away."

"Okay, I'm, uh, maybe ten minutes away."

"Good." He paused. "I'll uh, I'll text you with our new room number." Sam was silent for several uncomfortable seconds until Dean felt the need to break the silence. "I know, I know, it's stupid, she asked us to meet her somewhere else and she probably won't even come here, but –"

"Yeah, no, whatever… um, I mean, I get it."

Sam voice was even but contained a twinge of sadness and Dean flinched. What did Sam get, that he was embarrassed of him and trying to sweep him under the rug? Because that wasn't at all the case, but she was…well, they needed her on their team and if she was going to get weird about seeing him dream about strippers, then what would happen if she knew that he was committing incest with his little brother on a regular basis? No matter what they were – in love, monogamous, soulmates, whatever – that was the bare truth of it. If Anna had just broken out of heaven's jail like she said, then she probably didn't already know that information, nor could he imagine her taking it very well.

"Sam, come on, you know it's not like that."

"No, I know; you slept with her so it's weird. I get it, I do." He sighed. "I'll see ya in a bit."

"Yeah, I'll see ya soon."

Dean shut his phone and then rushed around and got their things together so he could trade rooms and then barely had time to text message Sam with their new room number before the low rumble of the Impala's engine filled the parking lot and there was a loud knocking on the door. As Sam set down his shopping bag, Dean filled him in on the important details and was thankful when Sam didn't ask him about the dream.

When he finished, Sam crossed over to the bed nearest to the door and sat down, wearing a serious, contemplative frown. "So…Cas just turned her over to heaven and then let her rot?"

Dean sat down beside him. "Guess so."

"But why?"

Phone still in hand, Dean scrolled down his contact list. "One way to find out."

.

Minutes later, Castiel was standing in front of them, shuffling his feet, looking down at the motel carpet, and wearing the face of a shamed child.

"Cas." Sam had on that damn puppy-dog look and was using that soft, pleading voice he usually saved for when he was trying to calm victims. "Why didn't you tell us about what you did to Anna?"

"I was ashamed. She was once my superior and a good leader. She deserved better than what I gave her."

Dean stood up and motioned for Sam to do the same. "Well, you can say you're sorry when we see her."

Castiel frowned. "No, Dean, I don't think that's a wise course of action."

Dean shrugged. "Come on Cas, I'm sure she'll be pissed but we're all on the same team here; we gotta stick together."

"I wasn't referring to my need to apologize to her. I meant that you and Sam should stay where you are. I need to go meet her alone."

Sam furrowed his brows and cocked his head to the side. "But why? She asked specifically to see us."

Cas leveled his gaze on Sam. "Yes, and that's why I don't trust her. If she is truly out of heaven's jail then that means they let her out to do their will."

Dean went slack-jawed and looked over at Sam, who looked just as incredulous to Castiel's news as he was, then they both turned to Cas. "Come on, this is Anna we're talking about, you can't mean – she wouldn't…"

"I know how hard this must be for you, Dean, especially since I am sure you have some…left over feelings from the last time you saw her, but unfortunately it's true. There is no other way she could be here."

"Maybe she escaped."

" _No one_ escapes."

A slow rage was beginning to burn in Dean's stomach. He took a few steps towards the angel and then fixed him with an angry grimace. "How do you know? You ever been there?"

Cas once again looked down. "I think you might have referred to it once as 'Bible Camp' or something along those lines."

"Son of a bitch." His voice came out barely above a whisper as sudden understanding came over him. "When you were going to warn us about the apocalypse…"

"I tried to tell you as soon as I realized what was happening, but heaven suspected I might try to contact you. They were keeping a watch over me and as soon as I tried to warn you and Sam and thwart their plans, they intercepted me and sent me there." He turned his head away from Sam and Dean's gaze. "The torture was unbearable, the pain worse than anything I could possibly find the language to describe. Time passes in heaven much like it does in Hell – every month on earth amounts to roughly ten years in heaven. To you I was gone for 36 hours, but to me it was six months."

Sam let out a gasp. "Jesus, so Anna's been up there…"

"For a long time, yes." He turned to Sam and Dean once again and his eyes were full of pity, regret, and sorrow. "I know this is difficult for you to accept, but they let her out because she broke. In the end, they all do." He paused. "Myself included."

Dean stared at the angel's guilty look and slightly hunched-over body as he admitted his weakness. "I'm sorry, Cas."

Castiel straightened and nodded at Dean with newfound composure. "I need you and Sam to stay while I go to see her alone."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well, I still think all of this is unnecessary –" The feeling of Sam's hand on his shoulder startled him and he broke off his sentence.

"But we'll stay," Sam finished, "and let you scope it out first."

Dean growled. "Anna's gonna be pissed when she finds out we don't trust her."

"Better her be angry than the both of you be dead." With those final words, Dean felt a cool breeze hit his face and Castiel was gone.

Dean threw up his hands and let them fall and slap the sides of his thighs. "Well, this is just awesome."

"Hey, Dean, I'm sure Anna's fine. Just…never can be too careful, you know? I mean, with everyone basically gunning for us…"

"Yeah, I know. It's just that we're too far into the game now to start alienating the people on our own team."

He turned from Sam and began to pace but Sam reached out with those freakishly long arms of his, wrapped them around Dean's waist, and then pulled him toward him until his back was pressed against Sam's hard stomach. "Hey, I know." He kissed Dean's ear. "But you gotta calm down." Sam moved his mouth from his ear down to his jaw and playfully nipped it. "It'll be okay." He moved back up and swiped his tongue along Dean's ear, then began rubbing his hands up and down along Dean's hips.

Dean relaxed into Sam's touch. "You do know this isn't turning into sex right now."

Sam laughed against Dean's skin. "I didn't think right now, but maybe a little later, once we get this Anna thing taken care of."

"You know you don't have to worry about her, right?"

"No; I don't think she'd hurt us, I think Cas is just being a little overprotective."

Dean frowned. "That's not what I was talking about."

There was a second's pause while Sam put the pieces together. "Oh. Well…" He brushed his hand over Dean's semi-hard length. "No, I'm not worried."

Dean turned around in Sam's arms and laid an open-mouthed kiss on his lips, which Sam eagerly returned, but a second later they felt a powerful gust of wind and hastily parted. They both hurried to sit down on the closest bed to hide their erections as Castiel once again appeared in the room. The angel was holding several dusty-looking vials filled with liquids that looked like they were different shades of snot and three bowls of different shapes and sizes filled with various substances, some of which Dean recognized and others that he didn't. Without hesitation, he cleared off their side table, set the various ingredients down, and began drawing on the table with a piece of chalk.

"I'm sorry." Castiel didn't once look up or change his matter-of-fact tone as he filled them in on Anna's plan to carve up Sam and scatter his pieces across the universe. "Her thought is," he measured out some amount of yellowish fluid and tossed it onto a bowl that looked like it was filled with red dirt, "that Lucifer won't be able to fulfill his plan if he can't find the pieces of his vessel. But I think part of it might also have to do with jealousy."

Dean got up and began to pace. "Really, Anna?" But he and Sam had saved her life, they risked their lives for her. "I don't believe it."

Castiel inspected the chalk lines he'd just drawn and began drawing another pattern over them. "It's true."

Dean felt pained. He thought he and Anna had a real connection…well maybe they did, maybe that was part of the problem. He'd slept with her once and now she'd gone nuts and decided to get Sam out of the way – Lucifer's vessel and his lover; two birds with one stone. "So, she's gone all Glen Close; well, that's awesome."

For the first time since he'd entered the room, Castiel looked up from his spellwork and at Dean. "Who's Glen Close?"

Dean turned away and began to pace across the room, back over to Sam – his brother, his best friend, the love of his life, and apparently the newest target of his most powerful and most crazy ex ever. "No one, just this psycho bitch who likes to boil rabbits."

Sam looked thoughtful. "So, the plan to kill me, would it actually stop Satan?"

Dean was horrified. "No! Come on, Sam –"

Sam gave him a silencing look and then turned back to Cas. "Cas, what do you think? She's gotta have a point."

Dean turned from his brother and stared at Cas, dreading his answer. The fact was, crazy and possibly working a little out of jealousy or not, Anna's plan did sound kind of logical. If she disintegrated Sam's body and tore his soul to pieces, then really, what would Lucifer have to work with? It would stop Lucifer from getting into his vessel, prevent the fulfillment of the apocalypse, and possibly save billions of lives. Not only that, but Sam would go to Anna willingly and stand perfectly still as she ripped him to shreds and scattered him in the wind because sacrificing himself would give him peace and ease his guilt for the precious little time he had to left to live. Dean tried to imagine the rest of eternity without Sam but all he could see was a wide, blank wall of nothingness, so he tried smaller. What would the rest of his life look like without Sam? He saw himself driving in the Impala and looking over to an empty passenger seat, sitting down at a diner and staring ahead at an unfilled booth, lying in in a king-sized bed beside cold, open space. He saw an unset place at Bobby's kitchen table, an unused section of the Impala's trunk that was free for more clothes and an extra set of guns. _Empty, dead, cold, alone._ The look on Dean's face as he stared at Castiel made his message clear: _Say no and lie if you have to._

Castiel's eyes lit a little too obviously and then he looked away from Dean and back to Sam. "No. She's, uh, Glen Close." Awkwardly, he looked back down at the table and once again continued his spellwork.

Dean closed his eyes and breathed a relieved sigh. Thank God. Unfortunately, then a new thought occurred to him and his peace only lasted for a matter of seconds. "Wait a minute, I don't get it. We're looking for the chick who wants to gank Sam? Why poke the bear?"

"Anna will keep trying, she won't give up until Sam is dead. So we kill her first." Castiel poured a smattering of white, oily liquid on the bowl that looked like it was filled with red dirt and began to speak in Enocian. Dean tensed and twitched, trying to stop himself from the embarrassing action of throwing his body on top of Sam's as they waited for what would happen next.


	33. Can't Get No Satisfaction

Sometimes life was too much for Dean. In the past four hours, he'd gone back in time to try and save his parents, who had bull's-eyes on their backs because his psycho angel ex-lover was trying to murder them to keep him and his brother from ever being born. And if that wasn't enough to make him want to run howling to a nuthouse, he also just had to watch completely powerless as Sam died in front of him, eyes wide and terrified, coughing and spluttering up blood, a pipe shoved through his stomach, courtesy of Anna. He wished Uriel would just finish strangling him already so he could join Sam, but the angel only grinned at Dean's pain, prolonging the torture and the way he hoarsely yelled for his brother over and over again. When Michael suddenly showed up wearing his father and a self-righteous smirk on his face to smite Anna and send Uriel back to heaven, Dean felt like he was about ten seconds away from his sanity snapping like a rubber band.

Michael touched Mary's temple and she collapsed to the floor. Without pause, the angel then turned to Dean, who was struggling against the roaring pain in his throat and stomach to get up, and smiled. "Well, I think this conversation is way overdue, wouldn't you?"

Dean pointed frantically to Sam as he lay on the ground with a pipe entering his stomach and leaving his back, blood slowly dripping from his mouth. "Fix him!"

Sam, Sammy, his Sammy, lost, lifeless, gone. He wouldn't, no, he couldn't – if Michael refused to help then after this was over, he was putting his gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. Watch Michael try wearing him then – an empty vessel without a face. And if he tried to bring him back, he'd do it over and over again – whatever it took to keep him from living without Sam.

Michael seemed to sense Dean's sentiments and his eyes flashed with a condescending, disgusted look. "First we talk." He looked over and down at Sam. "Then I'll fix your _darling_ little Sammy."

Dean shifted his eyes from Sam to Michael, and back to Sam. Whatever he had to do to get Sam back, he'd do it. And Michael knew that, too. The angel grinned and moved one step closer.

.

Dean's head throbbed and he fell to the floor from the powerful shove his body had taken from being forced thirty-two years forward. He coughed wretchedly and touched his forehead where he still felt Michael's cold fingers on his skin. "Sammy?"

"I'm here, Dean."

Dean looked up and saw Sam sitting upright on one of the beds, looking dazed but otherwise unharmed. "Thank God." Dean struggled to pick himself up from the floor and then limped over to the bed and sat beside Sam. "You alright?" Sam slowly turned to him and then picked up his shirts to show off his smooth, unscarred stomach. Dean reached out and lightly ran his fingers over it. "Looks like they did you one better than before; no knife wounds or anything."

He looked up into Sam's blank, unreadable face and then removed his hand and Sam pushed his shirts back down. "How am I alive?"

He asked the question blandly without any emotion or even curiosity in his voice. Dean nodded in understanding; the poor kid was in shock. "Michael brought you back."

"And then he just let you go?"

"Yeah, I guess. He said he just wanted to talk."

"What did he say?"

Dean's mind raced back to the conversation he'd just had with Michael:

_It's a bloodline stretching back to Cain and Abel. It's in your blood, your father's blood, your family's blood…I don't want this any more than you would want to kill Sam. You know, my brother, I practically raised him. I took care of him in a way that most people could never understand. It was never exactly the same way you take care of Sam, we were never that deviant…"_

_"Oh, you're just winning favor with me all over the place, pal."_

_"But aside from that, our relationship was pretty much the same, and I still love him. But I am going to kill him because it is right and I have to…Think of a million random acts of chance that let John and Mary be born, to meet, to fall in love, to have the two of you. Think of the million random choices that you make, and yet how each and every one of them brings you closer to your destiny. Do you know why that is? Because it's not random. It's not chance. It's a plan that is playing itself out perfectly. Free will's an illusion, Dean. That's why you're going to say yes."_

Dean looked into Sam's searching, soulful eyes. Michael said he was going to say 'yes' and kill Sam. He was going to kill Sam because he had no choice in the matter; no matter what he did or how hard he fought, he would always end up killing Sam. He could barely stand the thought and with the shock his brother was in, he was pretty sure Sam wouldn't be able to handle the information right then, either. A traitorous tear slid down his cheek, which he quickly wiped away by scrubbing his hand over his face.

"Nothing, Sammy; I'll tell you later."

Sam shifted his weight on the bed to face him, his expression a little harder and full of conviction. "What did he say?"

Dean sighed and closed his eyes, then flinched and scrunched up his face as two more tears slid down it. "He said – he said I'm going to kill you, Sammy. He said I'm going to kill you and I don't have a choice."

Against his better judgment, he quickly ran down the conversation with Michael and when he was done, Sam grabbed Dean's face and gently wiped the tear tracks from his cheeks. "Hey, hey, Dean, it's okay. He's wrong, right?"

Sam was looking at him with wide, shining eyes the way he used to when he needed Dean to slap a Band-Aid on his knee and tell him that it was all going to be okay. His little brother needed him to take control, to be the big brother and make everything okay again. That was his job, he guessed, to be the one with the answers, the one to lead, the one to fix it all and set things straight. But more than ever before, Dean was pretty sure that this time he couldn't do that. He couldn't guarantee that things were going to be okay or that they weren't going to end up either killing each other or let the world burn. As hard as he was working to keep Sam from wanting to leave him, he also still had no idea if his brother was going to once again decide that Dean was too weak or damaged and then leave him or try to otherwise fix things on his own and end up destroying the world, just like when he'd started the apocalypse. Hell, for all he knew, Sam and Lucifer were destined to be buddies, just like he was with Ruby and so when it came right down to it, Dean knew he had no control over the situation, his brother, or the future in general. Still, he tried to muster up some emotion to help him lie and tell Sam that he was going to fix everything or that together they could do anything, that he believed in him and that they would be able to overcome destiny, but the only thing he was able to bring up were feelings of being old and tired. He'd already felt this way too many times in his life, like he'd already lived over a hundred years, had seen everything, and was ready to die. But that wasn't what Sam needed right now and Dean's most important job was, always had been, always would be, to become whatever Sam needed.

He shut his eyes and then turned away from Sam and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I need a fucking drink." He got up from the bed, took his keys out of his pocket, and headed for the front door. "I'm going to the liquor store, be back in fifteen."

With that, he walked through the door and quickly shut it without a second glance. Sam watched him through the blinds as Dean climbed into the Impala and quickly drove away and then, once he was all alone in the quiet, empty motel room he looked down at his large hands and sighed.

Not long after Dean came back with his bottle of whiskey did Castiel appear in the room, standing on shaking legs and with a bleeding nose. Sam and Dean rushed up to him and as Castiel swayed on his feet, Dean held out a tentative hand.

"Son of a bitch, you made it back."

Castiel stared unseeingly ahead of him and then examined his hands as if they were foreign objects. "I did? I'm very surprised." With that, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, his head lolled back, and he collapsed. Sam and Dean quickly caught him and laid him down on the bed nearest the door.

That night, Dean sat next to Sam on the only available bed and drank himself into oblivion. Sam sat miserably still, not watching the movie Dean had on or taking hits from the bottle, which was making its way from full to empty much too quickly for one human being's consumption.

"Dean?"

Dean lazily lolled his head to squint at him. "Yeah, Sammy?"

"We're good, right?"

Dean fixed him with a sloppy grin. "Yeah, of course." He put an arm around Sam's waist. "You and me against the world, right?"

Sam shifted his weight so he was on his side facing Dean, laid his head on his chest, and then kissed his right pec directly over his matching tattoo. "Yeah."

In the next moment, he felt Dean's warm hand move from his waist and begin gently stroking his hair. Sam closed his eyes and buried his nose in Dean's chest, inhaling the earthy, comforting scent of his brother as he ruefully reflected on the events of earlier that day. He'd finally gotten to apologize to their dad for childishly resenting him, not understanding him, and even at one time going so far as to feel like he _hated_ him, for what he'd done to them growing up. Even after Jessica had died Sam hadn't understood the depths of their father's crazy obsession for hunting that demon. It had taken Dean to die, almost two years after their father's death, for him to really feel and understand that horrible, insane, plunging depths of unspeakable grief and sorrow that had fueled their father's rage and lust for revenge so wholly all those years. Even more than that, Sam had grown to realize that, although being raised with weapons training, constant fear, and no stable home had most definitely taken a toll on his and Dean's psyches, there was no doubt in Sam's mind that what he'd gotten being close to Dean was much more than what he'd ever been forced to give up. For all of Dean's problems – and he certainly had a lot of them – no one besides his big brother was capable of loving him with such ferocity, loyalty, or devotion, and Sam felt the same way about Dean. So he finally understood what their dad had to do, felt grateful for all he had, and forgave their dad for all the negatives it had brought for their family, but his father would still unfortunately never know any of that.

From underneath him, he felt Dean's weight shift as he put his bottle of whiskey down and then shimmied down the bed to lay flat on his back. Sam moved down with him so that they were lying together in the same position as before and after Dean shut out the light, he sighed and then once again resumed his stroking of Sam's hair. Sam felt the gentle rise and fall of Dean's chest and the rhythmic beating of his heart, the way his hand lovingly touched him and the way his smell was the only thing he'd ever associated with home, and all of that together made Sam's body feel heavy and sluggish with sleep. He couldn't imagine a world wherein he would say 'yes' to the Devil, knowing that it might kill his brother. Worse, that he would be the one to actually do the killing. All the same, Michael and Lucifer both seemed so damn certain that they were both going to say 'yes' and Lucifer even seemed to have it pinned down to the month and state where it would happen.

Dean slid his hand from Sam's hair and wrapped an arm around his waist, then cleared his throat, turned his head in to the pillow and let a little puff of breath escape from his mouth. Sam wrapped an arm around Dean's chest and hugged him tight. Theoretically, he guessed that saying 'yes' was possible; like he'd told Dean earlier, he'd been weak before. After all, it wasn't too long ago he'd let his stubborn hard-headedness and lust for power and revenge overcome him so that he did some monstrous things. He'd had sex with a demon, tortured demons and liked it, taken hits of demon blood in secret like some junkie, and even drank an innocent woman dry for the demon blood inside her. Hell, once when he was all hocked up on demon blood, he'd almost strangled Dean to death with his own bare hands! All of it was beyond horrifying, but he'd still done it. He shuttered as he thought about the evil that he was capable of.

Dean felt Sam's body shutter and rubbed his hand up and down Sam's arm as if trying to warm him and in response Sam nuzzled his face against Dean's chest. He knew enough to understand that, whether they were up against angels or demons, they would all tirelessly use the same tactic of using their love for one another against them to get the two of them to do whatever they wanted. Still, he couldn't understand how Michael or Lucifer could do that in this case. If he said 'yes' to Lucifer, he'd not only be consenting to being worn by the fucking Devil, but he'd be doing it knowing he was going to murder Dean.

The combination of his and Dean's body heat was creating a cocoon of warmth between them and Sam felt himself steadily becoming sleepier. Even if Michael was wearing Dean and coming at him with an angel-killing knife while he was possessed by Lucifer, he couldn't see himself being able to move his hand to make the killing strike. A fuzzy, half-formed thought formed somewhere in the back of his brain about Bobby and overcoming possession, but it slipped from his consciousness before he could fully grasp the idea and before long he had fallen into a deep, peaceful sleep.

.

Castiel didn't wake up that night, or the next morning. Sam and Dean were faced with the choice to either stay in the motel until Castiel recovered or throw his body in the backseat of their car and drive around with a comatose angel. In the end, they decided to stay. For the first couple of days Dean, who appeared especially agitated since their trip in time, surprised Sam by working out with him on most mornings before he settled in for hours of drinking and TV watching. Sam tried to keep himself busy by researching weird deaths, demonic omens, and anything else that he thought might look apocalypse related. They stayed a little quieter than usual as they avoided the much needed talk about their money situation. Still, they didn't really need to announce to one another that with Castiel looking like he might not be going anywhere for a while, they were in a bit of a jam; with all the hunts that had fallen into their laps lately, neither of them had had time to try and earn any money and they were on the verge of running low. Dean just sent out about a half dozen credit card applications and Sam checked online wanted ads when he was pretty sure Dean wasn't watching.

By the end of the third Day, Dean had maxed out his last credit card and they were switching to paying for everything with Sam's leftover cash that he still had from hustling pool back when Dean was recovering from his injuries. He'd managed to save up a decent amount of money at that time, but even so what was left over wasn't going to last long.

"How much money you got left?" Dean finally asked.

Sam sighed and shut his laptop. "About $200."

Dean nodded. "Well, that should last us for about another week or so. Maybe we should try to find a poker game in the area or hustle some pool."

Sam looked over at Cas. "Maybe we should check out and take him to Bobby's."

Dean rolled his eyes. "And what's Bobby gonna do with him? Come on Sam, he's got enough problems of his own without us dumping a comatose angel on his doorstep. Jesus Sam, think already!"

Sam raised an eyebrow at how Dean was getting more on edge with every passing day, but decided to just let it drop and instead sighed, opened back up his laptop and turned away from his brother. During the next two nights they went out to four different bars but hadn't managed to find any illegal poker games or anyone willing to place more than conservative bets against them in pool. Around midnight at the end of the fourth day, they both dejectedly came back to their motel room and silently went straight to bed with Sam at least feeling a little hopeless and irritated. Their $200 was now $120 and he was really beginning to feel the strain of their situation. It wasn't by far the worst off they'd been monetarily but their inability to get money on top of everything else was frustrating and he felt like he had no way to properly outlet his pent up energy, either. Judging by Dean's agitated motions as he removed his boots and threw them across the room, he felt exactly the same way. Sam took off his shoes, sighed, and turned out the lamp.

The next morning, Sam woke to the feeling of Dean's morning erection pushed up hard against his ass and his lips kissing the back of his neck while his hand slowly rubbed his cock. Sam's first thought while he was still half asleep was that the two of them hadn't done this in a while and he couldn't remember why, but whatever the reason he'd missed it like hell and they needed to do this right now. He moaned and pushed his ass back further but then in the next second opened his eyes and saw Castiel lying unconscious in the other bed. Oh, right.

He moved away from Dean as quickly as if he was a hot stove. "Dean."

"Mm, Sammy." Dean's low, scratchy voice whispered into his ear. "C'mere."

Sam reached down and moved Dean's hand from his crotch to his thigh. "No, Dean! Cas is right across the room."

Dean paused for a few seconds but then began running his fingers gently up and down Sam's thigh. "So? Come on, please Sam? I know it's not ideal and you know I'd never usually ask, but it's just been so long." He kissed Sam's shoulder. "I've been so keyed up lately, haven't gotten to touch you in forever. I just really wanna touch you."

Sam sighed. He knew exactly what Dean was talking about; he missed getting his hands, not to mention other parts of his body, on Dean too. As much as he enjoyed the cuddling they'd been doing lately, he also really wanted something more physical; he didn't want to just be near Dean, he wanted to feel him, lips on lips, skin on skin, exchanging sweat, heat, lust and pleasure. And Dean had never begged him for sex before and it was so incredibly sexy to hear. But Castiel was also laying _right the fuck there_ , not ten feet away from them. What if he woke up right when they were in the middle of it? Flowers wouldn't be enough to say they were sorry. Dean seemed to take Sam's silence as encouragement and traced his fingers along Sam's hipbone, running up to the waistband of his jeans and then just barely dipping inside.

Sam groaned in frustration; he was getting hard from Dean's touch but he couldn't do anything about it as long as they weren't alone. The last time they had had sex was a cramped quickie in the front seat of the Impala after Gary gave him back his body over a week ago. It had been too long for them, and especially since they'd had a nice, unhurried fuck which, judging by the way Dean was slowly moving his hands over him, was exactly what he wanted to do. But even if he gave in to Dean and decided to take a chance and go for it, he knew that every third second he'd be glancing over at Castiel to make sure he was still asleep and doing that sure as hell wasn't conducive to him getting off, or even being able to stay hard. As Dean's hand dipped low enough into his pants to reach the fine curls of his pubic hair, Sam felt himself being filled with an impotent male rage over just how little he could do about the situation.

"No Dean! Can't you keep it in your pants for, like five seconds?"

"I've been keeping it in my pants for over a week. Come on, can't you just pretend like he's not there? With how zonked out he is he practically isn't."

Sam flopped his head down hard on his pillow in a frustrated motion. "No, I can't, not as long as Cas is in the room; it's just too weird."

Dean huffed out a frustrated growl and threw the covers off of him. "I'm gonna go take a shower."

A couple of minutes later, Sam heard the sound of the running shower, shortly followed by the soft, choked off groans of Dean trying to silently jerk off. Sam could have screamed but instead he punched his pillow in anger. He was so keyed up and stressed out and all he wanted was to be in the shower with Dean right then so they could soap each other up and then grind against each other's bodies. Then when they were both rock hard and panting into each other's mouths, he could wash off Dean's dick real good and get down on his knees to lick it once the soap was washed off – As Sam's thoughts took a turn for the dirtier, his cock ached in protest from being ignored. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to blank his mind. From behind the bathroom door Dean gave a single, loud, cut-off groan as he came. Images of Dean's hand on his red, hard cock as his come hit the shower tiles danced in Sam's mind. He jumped out of bed, threw on his shoes, and headed for the door to take a long jog.


	34. Slow Ride

By the sixth day Castiel finally awoke. He still seemed a little shaky on his feet, but was well enough to duck his head, mutter an embarrassed 'thank you', and then quickly disappear. Sam barely raised an eyebrow to Castiel's hasty and odd departure and could only find feelings of pity for the angel; it must be frustrating and a little emasculating to suddenly be so limited in what he could do.

Dean threw an empty duffel on their bed and then tossed one to Sam. "Ready, Sam? I swear, if I gotta look at this room for another five seconds I'm gonna puke."

Sam opened up the nightstand and began hastily throwing random things into his bag – clothes, papers, a small bag of salt, and a gun were thrown indiscriminately in the same place. They'd sort it out later. When he got to their new and still unused bottle of lube, however, he couldn't stand shoving it into the bag with all the other random things that had been haphazardly shoved there. He slipped the bottle into his pocket and then went into the bathroom to grab their toiletries.

When he came out of the bathroom, he found Dean bent over to pick up a dirty shirt from the floor and Sam was quickly reminded just how limited he and Dean had been in the past week. And it was extremely frustrating and a little emasculating. This was the longest they'd gone without sex since the start of their relationship and, oh, the things he wanted to do to that tight, perky little ass. He imagined Dean bent over like he was but without any clothes and moaning his name as he thrust into him, cock buried to the hilt, grabbing Dean's hips and rutting against the smooth skin on that perfect ass.

Dean stood up and quickly turned around. "Sam? You alright?"

"Yeah." Sam said it in a whisper and stood unnaturally still as he contemplated whether or not Dean would react favorably to him just charging across the room, holding him down on the bed, and taking out all of his sexual frustrations out on his body. In the next second though, Dean made the decision for him by turning and heading quickly out the door. Sam sighed, cursed himself for hesitating, and followed.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Sam's whole body tingled with the hyper-awareness of Dean's presence beside him. The skin on his left side felt warmer than the right, his lips felt hot and sensitive and tingled incessantly, and his nipples felt hard and erect as if they'd already been played with. And everything was making him hard – the way Dean's hands gripped the steering wheel, the vibration of the car, the way his jeans rubbed against him every time he shifted his weight – and it was enough to make him feel insane. He eyed up his brother, letting his eyes slowly drag down his body and, it might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that Dean was pouting his lips a little more and sitting with his legs just a little further apart than usual under his gaze. God, the things we wanted to do with those lips and the things Dean could do with that mouth of his; just thinking about it was dizzying. A series of sexual memories and fantasies ran through his mind, each new one making him feel more crazed with frustration and lust than the last. He thought about the first time they rubbed off on each other in the front seat of the Impala and about the time Dean had taken a hand off the steering wheel to jack him off while driving to a case. He thought about the look of hunger in Dean's eyes as he'd watched his hand run up and down his cock and the look of satisfaction Dean had gotten when Sam finally came. He looked forward at the hood of the car and remembered how he'd sucked Dean off there just a little less than two weeks ago, the way Dean had come apart as he'd deep-throated him for the first time, how satisfied he was after he'd come. That same night, right behind there in the backseat, was the first time he'd seen Dean naked, spread out and vulnerable underneath him, asking to be fucked. Dean had never been fucked by anyone else and wouldn't let anyone but him do it. That tight heat, Dean's gasps and cries as he hit his prostate with every thrust, they were all his, meant for his eyes and ears only.

Dean cleared his throat and quickly turned the knob on the radio and the sounds of "Slow Ride" by Foghat filled the car. Sam groaned. Seriously? And even watching Dean's fingers close around and twist the knob of the radio just looked like the sexiest thing he'd ever seen in his life at the moment. Sam shifted in his chair and opened his legs wider so that his and Dean's knees were touching. He bet that Dean wanted to give him the attention he was so aching to have and he imagined himself sitting sideways in the passenger seat so Dean could blow him from his position in the driver's seat, those pretty, plump, pink lips tightly wound around his hard shaft. He saw himself pinning Dean in his seat where he sat and roughly removing his pants and pushing them down his strong thighs to reveal his red, hard cock, which he'd watch get harder and a little slick at the end with pre-cum as he attacked Dean's neck, sucking and biting at his flesh and marking him up as his.

He rubbed his knee a little against Dean's. They'd been on the road for about an hour by now, heading due north on Interstate 10 and even though it was almost mid-December, it was almost noontime and the temperature felt like it could be about sixty degrees. There were a few people on the road with them, not many, but enough to make him worry about possibly getting caught and Sam really wasn't much of an exhibitionist. Then, as if God was listening to his thoughts and giving him an answer to his prayers, a sign appeared before them announcing an exit for a service road up ahead.

"Dean, turn off at the next exit."

Dean didn't ask, didn't give him any inquisitive looks, or ask him any questions and actually sped up the car to get to the exit. Sam could have cheered right then; Dean wanted this just as much as he did. As the car exited the ramp to the service road, Sam reached over and rested his hand on Dean's crotch. It was super-heated and hard and Dean let out a hard breath and shifted his hips forward at just the feeling of Sam's fingers brushing against it.

Sam was nearly shaking with unbridled want. He slid close enough to Dean that their arms, sides, and legs were touching and began rubbing circles into Dean's crotch. "You really want this, don't you, Dean?"

The asphalt on the road came to an end but the road continued with a dirt pathway amongst some sand, sparse grass, and a few trees. They were still a little out in the open but there were no other cars and they were out of the view of the main road. Dean slowed considerably and kept going a little further on the dirt path, leading them just a little further out of the way.

Dean looked down to his lap for a second and then back up to the road. "You can feel that as much as I can, you fucking know I do."

The car came to a stop and Dean shut off the engine. Sam pushed down Dean's zipper, reached in, and pulled out his cock. He never thought he'd want to see a penis so much in his entire life. It was fully hard, the cockhead red and a little wet already and Sam dipped his head down to lap at the wetness and taste the salty musk. Dean let out a sigh and a little moan and rested his head back in the seat as Sam's hot, wet tongue touched him but then Sam wrapped his lips around the head and began bobbing back and forth on it slowly, teasing him, and Dean let a breathy, 'oh God, yes,' fall from his lips.

Sam slowly slid his mouth back and off of Dean's cock and then went back to licking it. "You like that, Dean? You like it when I suck your cock?"

Dean let out a hard breath and gritted his teeth. "God, don't stop."

Sam gave Dean's head one last, hard suck and then slid his mouth off of it with a wet pop. He pulled Dean's shirts up over his belly and licked his way up Dean's light trail of hair up to his belly button and the beautiful noises Dean made as he did so nearly drove him to the edge with lust.

"God Dean, hearing you like this, I'm not sure if I can keep this up for long before I – I –" He let out a frustrated growl and then agitatedly pushed Dean's shirts up over his chest, closed his mouth around a nipple, and sucked hard.

"God, I want – I want you to – shit, what do you want, Sammy?"

Sam opened the door and stepped outside. "Get out of the car."

.

Dean watched Sam exit the car and shut the door behind him. He really wanted to get Sam's ass back inside so they could pick up exactly where they left off, with Sam's amazing mouth wrapped around him and driving him crazy just like he'd been fantasizing about for almost the whole damn car ride, but he got out of the car as instructed. Sam was standing beside the hood on the passenger side and Dean crossed the car over to him then wrapped his arms around him and hungrily brought their mouths together with a frustrated growl. Sam wrapped his huge arms tightly around Dean's waist and then roughly pushed him up against the side of the car and moaned into his mouth. Sam's hands were everywhere – running up and down Dean's back, grabbing his ass, massaging the backs of his thighs, travelling up his back again to his neck and then grabbing his face – and he then pinned him against the car, his heavy weight keeping him firmly in place. Dean instantly felt overwhelmed. A part of him wanted to push Sam off of him and tell him to take it easy, but another, slightly larger part of him felt powerless to Sam's manhandling and kind of liked it. He wasn't leading, he had no idea what Sam had in mind or where this was going, and it was exciting. He grabbed the back of Sam's head and more forcefully pushed their mouths together and in response Sam moaned into his mouth and began grabbing him more aggressively, moving his hands with more confidence. After a minute, Sam broke the kiss and mouthed down along Dean's jaw, laying little kisses along the way and occasionally nipping the skin with his teeth.

"God Dean, you're so hot." Sam spoke to him in between kisses. "Want…you…so bad…so damn bad…it's all I can…think about…" His hands left his back and traveled to Dean's belt where he hurriedly unbuckled it. He then unbuttoned and unzipped the jeans and pushed them and his boxers down to just below his ass. "Unbuckle me." He moved back just enough so Dean could free his arms and Dean felt a shiver as his hands quickly went to Sam's belt, roughly grabbing the buckle and undoing it as fast as he could, then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. "Good." Sam began slowly stroking Dean's cock. "You like that?"

Dean moaned. "Fuck yeah Sam, you know I do."

Dean reached into Sam's pants and wrapped his hand around Sam's cock, but Sam stopped him by roughly shoving him against the car again. "You know what I want to do Dean? I just want to fuck you in this –" he grabbed Dean's ass, "tight, hard, perfect little ass, where no one has been but me. You want that, Dean? Will you let me inside you?"

Sam kissed him hard and then looked into his eyes and when Dean looked back, for the first time that day he saw the uncertainty there, the fear that his attempts to take him would be rejected, that he wouldn't like this side of Sam and make him suppress it. Sam needed this, needed to be taken care of by being allowed to take the lead and have control. Dean had to surrender to Sam and let him have all the power and just the thought of that somehow made Dean's skin prickle in excited anticipation of the unknown. For once he didn't need to make everything okay, he didn't need to have a plan, or take charge. He didn't need to do a damn thing, just let Sam have him.

Dean licked his lips. "Okay." He nodded. "Yeah, Sam, I want that."

Sam kissed him hard and then yanked Dean's pants down past his knees.

"Okay, good." He nodded enthusiastically. "Thanks, Dean." He kissed him hard on the mouth again. "I promise I won't hurt you."

Dean was about to say that he already knew that, but was cut off by the sensation of suddenly being spun around so that his hands were resting on the hood of the Impala and then Sam was right behind him, pulling his hips further back and making him bend over the hood of his own car. He heard the swooshing of fabric and then felt Sam's body pressed up against him, his hard cock grinding against his ass, his still clothed top draped over him, and his lips pressing soft kisses to the back of his neck.

"I'm gonna make this so good for you Dean, I swear I will."

Sam pulled his body off of him then and Dean missed Sam's heat until suddenly he felt a warm, lubed up finger petting around his entrance. Sam had lube on him? Was be preparing for this beforehand? In the next moment though, Sam pushed the finger inside and begin to stroke him from the inside and he once again welcomed the pressure and the sensation and forgot about his earlier thoughts. This time, Sam found his prostate almost right away and Dean called out in pleasure as he rubbed against it and Sam added a second finger, making sure to go to the same spot.

"Yeah, you like that, Dean? You like it when I fuck you with my fingers? You want more?" He twisted the fingers inside of him and Dean resisted the urge to moan embarrassingly loudly. His cock was heavy and throbbing between his legs and he wrapped his hand around it and began stroking himself, but as soon as he did, Sam nipped his ear. "Not yet, Dean, not until I tell you to."

Dean shivered, feeling his body just spark and tingle with the sudden sensation of being so _alive_. He really did get all tingly when Sam took control like this. "Goddamn, Sam, mm, fuck!"

Sam was thrusting his fingers into him and it felt so damn good and then he reached around with his other hand and began to unbutton Dean's over shirt. "You sound so fucking hot, Dean, hearing you like this, knowing you want this just as much as I do, God, you've got me so worked up…" Sam kept babbling and he unbuttoned Dean's shirt and Dean slipped it and his t-shirt off. Then he heard the rustling of clothes behind him and turned around to see Sam removing his own shirts one-handed as he continued to work his fingers inside him. He pulled out for just a second to throw this shirts off and apply more lube to his fingers and then they were quickly back inside, frenziedly thrusting. Sam's skin was flushed and he was staring down at Dean's ass, no doubt watching his own fingers work him open. Not that Dean could blame him; he liked to do that too, it was a pretty hot thing to watch. He moved his ass back, pushing down more firmly on Sam's fingers in a way to silently tell him he was ready for more because he was still above begging. Sam slipped in a third finger and then looked up and saw Dean watching him.

"How's it feel?"

"Feels good, Sam, I think I'm ready."

Sam hesitated. "Are you sure?"

Sam looked a little nervous and Dean could understand why. Sam hadn't been fingering him with three fingers for long enough to open him as much as he needed to be and Sam also knew that he had a lot of girth to him, especially when Dean had only bottomed for him one other time and his muscles were still tight and unused to being breached. But the first time they'd done this, Dean kind of liked to really _feel_ Sam inside him, to experience the rush of adrenaline that came with the pain of the stretch and then later with Sam's frenzied, out-of-control movements when he was so close to coming undone inside of him. He even liked the discomfort later, which reminded him of everything they'd done and how much he, and every part of him, was completely Sam's.

Dean grinned. "Yeah Sammy, I'm sure."

Sam stepped fully into Dean's space and pressed his hard, naked chest against his back, kissing and licking Dean's neck and shoulders, but kept his fingers deep inside him, moving them in scissoring motions. "I told you Dean, I'm gonna make this good for you. I don't want to hurt you, that's not what this is about."

Dean felt Sam's rigidly hard cock rubbing against his left cheek, could feel the extreme heat coming off of his lover, and knew just how hard Sam was fighting against listening to him and pushing himself inside before he was adequately prepared. He turned his head and caught Sam's mouth in a hard, passionate kiss, which was instantly a mash of lips, tongues, and teeth as they moaned into each other's mouths. Then Sam finally reached around and began stroking Dean's hard length and he couldn't stand it a second longer. He broke the kiss stood with their noses and mouths just barely apart, panting heavily into their shared air.

"Just do it Sam, fucking please!"

Sam smiled, showing his dimples, and nodded. "Okay."

Sam removed his fingers and then Dean turned his upper half around to see Sam popping the top off of their little bottle of lube. Dean held out his hand. "Let me." Dean took the bottle, squirted a good amount onto his hand and then rubbed it all over Sam's cock while Sam watched and Dean couldn't help but go on for a little while after Sam was already lubed up, stroking him slowly and watching his cheeks flush even deeper with increasing arousal.

Sam closed his eyes. "God, Dean, keep that up and this is gonna be over real fast."

Dean grinned, stopped, and was about to wipe the excess lube off on his pants still bunched up around his knees when he once again felt himself being spun around and his hips pulled back. He was bent over the car with his hands splayed on the hood for support, his naked ass in the air, staring at the open space and sparse trees ahead when he felt Sam's tip breach him. He pushed in slowly to get him used to the girth, but even with all the prep the kid was big. He wasn't monstrously huge, but he was just big enough that when Dean had first seen him at attention and thought about it being inside of him that the physics of the situation had had him a bit worried. Now he felt some pain as Sam eased himself inside and welcomed the discomfort, loved feeling Sam's gasps of pleasure from feeling his tight heat pushing around him, and it made him so hot that he was the one who had Sam so worked up, that Sam was this hard and full of need and want because he had pushed him there. Dean pushed back, driving more of Sam inside of him, and Sam let out a loud moan and shoved the rest of the way in. Dean felt the fine curls of Sam's pubic hair pressed up against his ass and his hot and heavy sac resting right behind his. Sam wrapped his arms around his chest and pressed them flush together.

"Ooh God," Sam whispered, "that's good. You ready for me, Dean?"

Was he ready? He was ready about two minutes ago when Sam starting pushing himself in. "Yeah Sam, move."

Sam pulled out slowly, barely moving, and then shoved back in with might, shoving himself as far inside as he possibly could. He kept moving like this, slow yet hard and occasionally moving at different angles as he went, looking for Dean's spot. When he found it, Dean let out a yelp that he would later deny making and let out a deep sigh and then Sam's breath hitched and he began moving faster.

"A-ah, Dean, yes, I love it when you make noises like that, you sound so sexy when you do that!"

Dean turned his head to look at Sam's face. Despite the cool day, there was a thin sheen of sweat coating his brow. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open in a semi-circle. Dean kissed him on that mouth and Sam's eyes shot open and ferociously kissed back. Sam's right hand traveled down Dean's chest to his hips, then up the inside of his thighs to rub at that sensitive spot just behind his sac and Dean felt his prostate being rubbed from both the inside and the outside and his eyes nearly crossed. He felt the muscles in his ass contract as if getting ready for orgasm, but he didn't feel like he was quite there yet. His cock throbbed and ached to be touched and he knew just a few strokes would have him coming fast and hard.

"Ooh God, Sam, oh God, fuck, oh, fuck, Sam, touch me!"

"Are you close, Dean?"

"Yes, o-o-oh, yes – yes!"

"Me too."

He waited for Sam to pound into him fast and hard as they both careened towards orgasm, but instead Sam did what he least expected; he pulled out. "What the fuck?"

Seemingly without any effort, Sam spun Dean around, picked him up, and shoved his back down on the hood of the Impala. Dean felt a shiver from his overheated flesh coming into contact with the cold metal and then again when he saw the half-crazed look on Sam's face.

"I want to watch you come."

Sam grabbed Dean's feet at the ankles and threw off his shoes and socks, then reached up to take his pants off the rest of the way. Once Dean was completely naked and watching his still half-clothed brother, he felt completely stripped and bare and then Sam pulled him down a fraction of an inch so that his ass was hanging off the hood and he felt like Sam's ragdoll being slung around just however Sam wanted. And, God help him, it made him so hot. Sam grabbed his legs at the ankles and held his legs over his shoulders, then pushed back into him. He wasn't as slow or gentle as when they'd started and he started moving before Dean gave him the go-ahead but the pain was minimal and Sam tried taking his mind from any discomfort he might have by stroking his cock with one of his large, hot hands. Within just a few short minutes, they'd built up the same heat and hard rhythm they'd had before and when Sam found his prostate again, Dean cried out in pleasure.

"That's it, Sam, that's it – right there – yeah, a-a-ah, yeah!"

Dean's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he felt himself tense for orgasm and Sam's movements became faster and slightly erratic and Dean knew he was close to coming, too. Sam stroked his cock faster and harder, working in time with his movements, and soon Dean felt a huge swell come over him as his orgasm hit him hard. He screamed Sam's name and shot all over Sam's hand and his chest and stomach. Sam stroked him through his waves of orgasm and then took his hand off Dean's cock and then held Dean's hips in place as he thrust into him fast and hard.

"Oh God, Dean, oh God, thank you Dean, thank you, so good, it's so damn good, this is the best sex I've had in my life! Oh God – oh God – oh God!"

Sam's knees buckled and he let go of Dean's hips to grab onto the edge of the hood and steady himself. Dean felt the heat of Sam's come shooting into him hard, and wrapped his legs around Sam's waist to help him as he kept moving in stuttering movements while his orgasm continued to shoot through him. Finally, Sam stilled and Dean unwound his legs so that he could pull out, which Sam did as gently as possible. Dean lay still on the hood, completely spent and feeling Sam's release slowly dribble out of him and Sam eyed him up appreciatively.

"God, look at you all messed up like that." He leaned forward, placed a large hand on either side of Dean's head, and kissed him gently. "You look so sexy."

As he came down from his orgasm, Dean began to dislike just how vulnerable he felt completely naked and after Sam had slung him around and did whatever he'd pleased with him. It was good, really good, but he also felt a little bit of shame. He'd planned on letting Sam have control, but he'd never planned to really let go like he just had. It wasn't supposed to be this way, he wasn't supposed to… from a small part of his brain, his father's whispered to him: _pervert, weak, sick, fairy-boy_ and he cringed.

"Dean?" Sam's voice broke him out of his thoughts and saw that Sam was looking at him concernedly with searching eyes. "Are you okay?"

Dean smirked at him. "Yeah." He pushed Sam off of him, sat up, slid off the hood, and bent down to pick up his boxers off the ground. "And I'm always sexy; everyone wants a piece of this."

"Yeah, okay Dean." He didn't look over at Sam again as he began putting back on his clothes, but he could just hear the eye roll in his voice.

After they were both dressed, Dean slid into the driver's seat and shifted around for a second until he found a comfortable position, then started the car and the two of them took off and headed back to the highway. They were quiet for a little while but as they got back on the highway and were once again heading northbound, Dean broke the silence.

"Don't expect that too often."

Sam looked away from him and out the window. "I know, Dean, I heard you the first time. I won't." They were silent for a few more minutes and then, "So, where are we going?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know, I guess maybe we could head towards California. It doesn't really matter, but we just need to find a place where we can take a break from hunting and earn a little money."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, okay, sounds good."

Dean smiled a little at the windshield. Sam was still asking him what to do, he was still in charge. And if he decided to let go a little every once in a while to make Sam happy and give him free expression in the bedroom, well, that wasn't such a crime, was it? From a small corner of his mind, he still heard the little self-deprecating voice in his head whispering to him but he turned on the radio, cranked up the volume, and ignored it as they drove on.


	35. Heartbreaker

As they sat down in their booth at the diner, Sam opened up his laptop and began trying to hook into the free wi-fi. Dean crossed his arms. "I can't believe there're no hunts anywhere right now."

Sam raised his eyebrows and looked at him from over his laptop. Had Dean even been listening to him when they'd just talked about this? "I didn't say there were no hunts anywhere; I just said I didn't see anything interesting in the local obits."

Dean scowled and leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, well find something."

Sam rolled his eyes at being on the receiving end of Dean's surly mood but looked down at his laptop and said nothing. Ever since they'd gone back in time and met their parents three weeks ago, Dean had been getting into these moods where he'd be annoyed and distant at times for no apparent reason and Sam wasn't sure if Dean was only upset about what had happened back there or if there was something else adding to it, but he decided to let it go. Ever since they were kids, Dean sometimes just got this way, usually when he was upset about something and didn't want to burden anyone with it. It could be as trivial as missing their dad while he was away on a hunt or feeling rejected by the cute blonde who sat beside him in math class or even something as serious having pneumonia and trying to muscle through it so no one would fuss over him or mourning the death of a loved one. Sam usually left him alone when he got this way; whatever was bothering him almost always passed and he got over it. Acting like this was just his way of working things out on his own and Sam only got involved when he realized that he needed to intervene, like when Dean actually had pneumonia and needed to be taken to the hospital or when he was drugging his feelings over Ellen and Jo's death.

"Well, I'm looking, but it might take me awhile. Besides I thought we were taking a break to get money."

Dean looked back at him and shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm just tired of sitting around doing nothing is all. Besides, we've hustled enough drunk college kids out of their money, we should be focusing on finding the Horsemen, or finding a way to kill the Devil."

Sam sighed and looked back down to his laptop. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Nothing Dean had said was untrue; they did have enough money. Rich college kids came a dime a dozen where they were and over the past two weeks they'd made $5,300, $1,200 of it in one night alone when Dean had targeted some drunk frat guy and won his last $300 from him. When the kid started complaining that he wasn't going to get any more money from his parents until Christmas, all his friends had kept stepping up to try and win it back for him and that's when Dean had started putting on the performance of his life. He'd stumbled around acting completely hammered and challenged them all to play them and one by one a lot of them took a turn to lose their money. Sam was sure that they could have won even more that night but he'd tugged Dean out of the bar by his collar when he was starting to worry that the night was going to end in a huge bar brawl that he didn't want to be a part of. Besides the money they'd made, Dean had also sent out several credit card applications and managed to get a couple, so they were looking pretty good money-wise at the moment. And they really couldn't afford to take a break from the apocalypse. There was still no way he was going to believe that those were the reasons why Dean was so eager to jump into a hunt so fast, but they were still true.

He started typing some keywords into an online newspaper but hadn't gotten far before their waitress came up to them, eyeing up Dean with a huge smile on her face. Of course she was looking at Dean; everyone looked at Dean. Sam felt a small swell of pride as he thought about how almost everyone they met wanted his brother. Dean could literally have almost anyone he wanted, but he wanted Sam. The waitress turned and flashed him a brief smile too and Sam could see that, even by his standards, she was pretty good-looking. She had soft, unblemished tanned skin with a few freckles across her small, pixie-like face and smiled at him with a mouthful of straight, white teeth. A quick look down her body showed that she had small but well-proportioned breasts and her short skirt showed off her athletic legs. Sam turned to Dean to see him giving her a smile that looked like it was caught between being courteous and a leer.

"Hey, get you guys something to drink?"

She looked over at him and Sam nodded politely at her. "Coffee, please, thanks."

"Same."

The waitress shyly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and seemed to unconsciously lean towards Dean by a fraction of an inch. "Would you like a couple of menus?"

Dean worked his face into something that Sam could tell was supposed to be more appropriate, but in the end just smiled uncomfortably at her as if he was fighting a bout of gas. "Yes, thanks, that'd be great."

Sam watched her walk away. That was painful. Why did Dean keep doing that? For an entire month now, Dean had been shifting upright in his chair when cute girls approached him, smiling at them like he was in pain when they talked, and barely paying any attention to their flirtations. It just wasn't Dean. At first, Sam thought it was just that Dean was in a weird mood or not interested but he definitely knew now that that wasn't the case.

Sam gestured his head towards the waitress. "Pretty hot, huh?"

Dean worked his face into an overly casual look and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I didn't really notice." He nodded towards Sam's computer. "So, you got something?"

"Uh, no, not yet. Actually, I was thinking that it might take me a few days to find something worth looking at, so, I mean, I know we've got a lot to do but maybe we could take a break for another couple of days and do something special."

The waitress came back just then with their menus and bit her lip a little as she smiled and handed them to Dean who gave her that same damn constipated look. Sam was pretty sure that the girl thought Dean was interested but shy and she obviously found it attractive because she stepped into his space and touched his hand as she handed the menus off to him and then rushed off. Sam stifled a little laugh at her behavior, but Dean handed him his menu and pretended as if he hadn't noticed.

"Why, what's in the next couple of days?"

Sam cocked an eyebrow and looked at him disbelievingly. "Christmas? It's only two days away, Dean."

"Oh, right. That explains the thinning out of the college kids in the bars over the past few days." He paused for a second, blankly staring down at his menu. "Sure, sounds good. We'll get a little Boston Market, make some eggnog. Maybe we can get some snacks and watch a movie in our room?"

Sam nodded and smiled. "Yeah. That sounds fun."

"Except this time, I'm making the eggnog."

Dean grimaced as he no doubt thought about the stuff Sam had made the last time they'd had Christmas together, two years ago and Sam laughed. "Okay, deal." He flipped open his menu. "By the way, our waitress is watching you from the drink fountain."

Dean scowled at him. "I can't help what she does."

Sam pretended to be super interested in his menu as he scanned his eyes across the laminated pages. "I know. I'm not mad, Dean."

The rest of their meal went awkwardly. Their waitress came around their table often, checking on them and re-filling their coffees. With each pass she made, Dean seemed to somehow get more uncomfortable, staring at the table too much, hunching in on himself, and smiling increasingly awkwardly. Sam watched the whole thing play out and realized by the end that he was going to eventually need to intervene somehow. When they finished their meal and she handed them their bill, she looked down and smoothed her hands over her skirt.

"Look, I, um, I don't usually do this," she said shyly as she took her notepad from the waistband of her skirt and then pulled a pen from behind her ear. She quickly scribbled on the paper and then put on a wide, toothy grin as she laid it on the table in front of Dean. "My name's Meredith and I get off at four."

Dean smiled back but still didn't hide, at least to Sam, that he was mildly annoyed. "Thanks, Meredith."

She gave him one last smile and then walked off towards another table. Dean reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, then turned the bill over, grabbed a $20 from the worn, brown leather trifold, and made a motion to leave. Sam crooked an eyebrow and looked at his brother disbelievingly.

"You're not going to take the number?"

Dean looked down uneasily at the unturned piece of paper lying beside their bill as if he was being given some kind of test. "Why? It's not like I'm gonna call."

"Of course you're not gonna call, that's not the point." He sighed. "You never called half the girls whose numbers you picked up. Since we were kids, you used to collect them and keep them in a stack in your wallet until you couldn't close it anymore and then throw them away."

Dean gave him a cheeky half-smile. "Wow, when you say it like that, it just sounds pathetic. Glad I don't do that anymore."

Sam shook his head. "You know, I don't get it, what's going on with you lately?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Nothing's going on with me; I just don't want to take the stupid number, alright?"

"No, that's not it. I think I know what this is about. You're afraid I'm gonna get jealous, right?"

Dean's face darkened. "You are going to get jealous, Sam. You always get jealous. Motel clerks, waitresses – hell, I saw you get jealous over a fictional character!"

Sam almost shot back that Dr. Sexy was very real when they met him, but managed to control himself, instead choosing to be a little more constructive. "That was before, Dean. I know this is just the way you are and it's okay with me."

"Yeah, whatever, you say that now and then you're just gonna – "

Dean cut himself off and moved once again to get up, but Sam was quick on the draw. He grabbed Dean's arm so that Dean would have to stay put if he wanted to avoid making a scene and Dean stilled. "I'm just gonna what?"

Dean clenched his jaw, the muscles bulging a little out at the sides. "Nothing."

"Oh no, you've brought me into this now, you can't just start saying something like that and not finish."

Dean gave him a hard stare and looked as if he was weighing his options. Dean had very few tactics; he could walk out of the diner, get in the car, and give him the silent treatment every time Sam asked about what was wrong. That was usually the most painful: it made things between them awkward and tense, and it took the longest for him to get whatever information he wanted out of Dean, but the longer Dean went without talking the more persistent Sam got about finding out about it, and Dean knew that. He could threaten him with violence if he tried to push it, but that usually ended up the same as option number one, except there might be an actual fist fight involved. He could take off and leave him behind for a while, but Dean almost never did that and with the apocalypse happening and their not being able to separate, it wasn't even practical. So, he was really just left with one other option; suck it up and talk about it. Dean sighed as he seemed to come to the same conclusion.

"Leave, Sam. No matter what happens, you always leave. Well, not this time; I'm not giving you a reason."

Sam's heart sank as he realized that Dean really thought that he needed to change himself to make Sam want to stay with him. "Dean, I've been around you my whole life, alright, and I knew what I was getting into from the start. I know things were a little rough for a while at first when we started this thing. It's been hard for the both of us, but I know you're not gonna cheat on me anymore. I heard you at the mental institution and I know you're in this for the long haul. I am, too. I promise I'm not gonna get jealous if you flirt with some random chick and I'm not gonna leave; I fell in love with Dean, not Stepford Dean."

Dean sniggered and gave him an uncomfortable half-smile. "Hey, I'm not a Stepford Wife; if anything, you're the woman in this relationship."

Sam rolled his eyes but smiled. "Yeah, okay, whatever." Sam let go of Dean's arm and Dean began to get up again, still not showing any sign that he was going to take the number. "You're really not going to take it?"

"No."

"Because it would really be okay if you did." He stood up with Dean and then walked into his space, put a hand on his shoulder, and moved to whisper into his ear. He kept his face totally serious so that to any onlookers the gesture would simply look like he was saying something as innocent as that he was going to run to the bathroom before they go, or not to forget to tip the waitress. "I like seeing them want you and knowing that the only person who you're gonna fuck later is me."

Dean nodded nonchalantly, playing into the muse. "Okay."

Sam clapped him on the back and started to walk away, but not before he looked at Dean from the corner of his eye and saw him briefly smirk and then pick up the number and shove it into his wallet. He quickly turned for the door and pretended that he hadn't noticed as he headed for the door, hearing Dean's heavy boots following closely behind.


	36. Some Kind of Monster

After the incident at the diner, Sam made a point to ask Dean if they could go to a strip club later that night and in response, Dean had given him a big-eyed, wide-grinned stare that reminded him of a kid on Christmas morning. When they got there, Sam chose a seat for himself facing away from the stage and spent most of the night staring at either his beer bottle or the grain pattern on their wooden table, glancing around only occasionally to signal their waitress for another beer. He took occasional glimpses at the stage when Dean seemed particularly excited about a dancer but usually looked back away pretty quickly. Sitting in front of a sticky table in a place that smelled faintly of beer and sweat while getting hard in public to nearly naked women who were only interested in him as a potential financial transaction was not his idea of a good time. On top of that, the hot, stuffy air was making him sweat but he tried to at least not look miserable and let Dean have his fun. Dean, of course, noticed his discomfort but said nothing and when the waitress made Sam feel awkward and blush by repeatedly touching his arm and back as she handed him his drinks, no doubt hoping that being extra flirtatious would bring her an extra-large tip, Dean actually laughed.

By the time they got back to their room, it was 3 A.M., Dean was drunk and Sam felt like his clothes were completely saturated in grime and sweat. They both immediately shucked off their dirty clothes, staying in only their t-shirts and boxers, and the moment they were laying down with the lights out, Sam heard the sheets rusting as Dean slid over to him from across the bed. In the next moment, he felt Dean's forefinger and thumb pinch his nipple and smelled Dean's whiskey breath on his face. Breathing heavily, Dean kissed him hard on the mouth and then rubbed himself against Sam's thigh and Sam felt how aroused Dean was. Although Sam felt tired and was a little annoyed that his brother was hard from staring at strippers and now expected him to take care of it, he made out with Dean for a little while and then shoved a hand down his shorts and began stroking him fast and sure. As soon as he did, Dean reached into Sam's shorts, pulled out his semi-hard cock and began stroking him as well. They lay there, facing each other side-by-side, kissing and stroking each other until Sam was fully hard and then Dean stopped Sam's hand, pushed their dicks together, and began jerking them off in sync. Sam joined, wrapping his hand around their bases, and together they laid, touching each other and breathing heavily into each other's mouths until they came, spurting all over one another's hands and clothes. Sam knew that he should care about the wet mess on him but at the moment was just too tired to really want to move and Dean seemed to feel the same way because they pulled their shirts off, wiped their hands off on them and threw them to the floor, then lay beside each other and fell asleep.

The next day, Dean kept his word and stopped bothering Sam about finding a hunt for them so they could just spend the day relaxing and getting ready for Christmas. They went into town and picked up a couple of bottles of whiskey, some tinsel, a bucket, a bag of sand, a small package of ornaments, a carton of eggnog, black licorice (Dean was going to have to eat all of that by himself,) popcorn, Reese's, Airheads, and some fun size Hershey's bars. On the way home, they found a little three-foot tall evergreen tree by the side of the road, chopped it down, tied it to the roof of the car and took it back with them. They set it up in their room by using the bucket and sand. Later, as they decorated the tree together, Sam watched Dean's relaxed, smiling face as he threw tinsel on the limbs and thought that for the first time in a while, his brother actually looked happy, or as close to happy as Dean got these days. Later that night as Sam lay on his stomach with a pillow shoved under himself while Dean lay on top of him rocking into him slowly, kissing and biting his shoulders and moaning into his ear, Sam felt like, apocalypse or no apocalypse, the two of them were finally okay.

Christmas started out fairly uneventfully. They slept in late, woke up at around eleven, and had another round of sex before getting in the shower to clean up. The water turned cold while Sam had Dean pinned against the cool tile wall of the shower with his tongue deep in his mouth, the two of them rutting against each other and still covered head to toe in soap suds. They rinsed off quickly and ran back to bed for a second round of sex, which then turned into a third. By evening, Sam and Dean lay in their sweaty, tangled sheets, feeling exhausted, sore, and completely sated.

Sam went out to grab them Boston Market while Dean stayed behind to make eggnog and after Sam came back with the food, they spent the rest of the night eating, drinking eggnog and watching movies. They turned on the TV right at the beginning of the old 1981 version of "Clash of The Titans." Dean got excited because he said he'd heard a new version was coming out in a few months and he wanted to see the old one again first. During a commercial break, Sam started flipping through the list of movies they could order and at first Dean got the wrong idea and sniggered.

"Sam, you sly dog, you wanna watch a porno together? Fuck, is there no satisfying you?"

Sam felt his cheeks burn a little hot and he swallowed hard. "Shut-up," he mumbled embarrassedly. "And I don't even want to think about sex right now, my ass is so sore."

He clicked on the "Action" section, making sure not to accidentally move down one more category to "Adult" like Dean had expected him to, and looked for a minute until he found "Fist of Legend." It had been a while since he'd seen a good Jet Li movie, so he told Dean that after their movie was over he wanted to watch that one next. After they finished the first film, Dean kept grinning like a little kid and repeating, "Unleash the Kraken!" Sam laughed good-naturedly at Dean's cheery mood and agreed to see the new "Clash of the Titans" movie as soon as it came out in theatres. Dean seemed relaxed and happy and Sam had had enough drinks to feel contented and untroubled, and so what happened next caught Sam completely off-guard.

They were sitting on their bed, drunk, still working through all the eggnog, and about to watch the second movie, although it had been over forty-five minutes since the first movie ended and neither of them had made a move to turn it on yet. The room had gone silent for the past fifteen minutes but Sam hadn't even noticed the silence until Dean suddenly broke it. "Sam?"

Sam, who had been happily staring off into space, turned to face his brother and saw him looking thoughtful and apprehensive as he spent a long moment quietly staring into his half-empty glass. "Yeah, Dean?"

"What's it like, having sex with a demon?"

Sam blanched. "Why?"

"Because I wanna know, that's why."

Sam swallowed hard; he'd always really hoped Dean would never want to have this conversation. "Dean, I really don't want to talk about it."

Dean's face hardened. "Oh, I see, so you're still allowed to keep secrets from me, huh? Is that it?"

"What? This isn't about keeping secrets! Why do you want to know so bad? It's not exactly like those were good memories for me."

"Right, not good memories, so you're gonna tell me you didn't like it?"

"Well…" Sam squirmed, trying to find the right words to say. "At the time, I guess it felt good, but afterwards I felt…" He stopped; he really didn't want to talk about this. "You know what, where is this coming from? Ruby's dead." Seriously, what did Dean care anymore? He knew that Dean hated Ruby, with good reason, and after reading Chuck's story he knew Dean was even jealous of her, but she was gone.

"It doesn't matter, Sam!" Dean burst out with sudden vehemence.

Sam stared at him wide-eyed. "Dean? What are you – why are you – " His face contorted in horror as a thought occurred to him. "We've been having sex all day, have you been thinking about this the whole time and comparing notes?"

"What? No!"

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Dean?"

"No, Sam! If I was thinking about you getting it on with that black-eyed skank, do you think I'd even be able to get it up?"

Sam felt a surge of shame at Dean's words and felt a new wave of disgust for all the things he'd done with Ruby. Dean felt sick whenever he thought about Ruby touching him, he knew that already from reading Chuck's story too, and he felt himself being filled with rage over it. He'd held Ruby in place while Dean stabbed her and had been doing everything in his power to control the demon blood cravings. He'd been punishing himself for what he'd done for a long time now by feeling like a horrible monster for it and he was doing everything he could to fix what he'd done and repair things between himself and Dean. Could he never redeem himself to his brother? Would Dean always be disgusted with him over what he'd done in the past and couldn't change? "Okay Dean, I've had about enough. I won't tell you anything until you tell me what this is about right now!"

Dean stared at him for a moment, emptied his glass, and then bent down to pick up the very spiked carton of eggnog, poured out another half cup, filled the other half with more whiskey, gulped it down, and did it again. "Fine. It's been bothering me for long enough already anyway. Two weeks ago, on the Impala. You really like it a little rough sometimes, don't you, Sam?"

Sam's jaw dropped. "What? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Wait a minute; I like it 'rough'? Do you mean I hurt you?"

"No, Sam, no, you didn't hurt me. And it didn't bother me at first. I mean, hey, you like to sling me around sometimes, alright, fine, whatever. But why is it that I've been sleeping with you for three months and I'm only now finding out that you like that sort of thing, huh?"

"Uh…I don't know, I guess I was afraid that you might not like it."

"Right." Dean said slowly. "So, what other kinks do you have that you're not telling me about?"

"Kinks? Dean, that's not a kink, sometimes I just like to take control when we're…" Sam paused and his face hardened in anger as the meaning of what Dean was saying finally clicked. "Hold on, are you actually suggesting that what I do with you is anything like Ruby?"

"I'm saying that there's a lot of leftover crap from Ruby that I don't know about. I'm saying that there are still things about you that, apparently, you're too scared to tell me about!" Sam stared at him, jaw tightened and nostrils flaring, and Dean's eyes softened a little. "It's not just about the sex, alright? I mean, we're supposed to be looking out for each other and I – sometimes, I just don't know. Lucifer seems so sure you're gonna say 'yes' and I don't even know how Ruby got you to…" He trailed off.

"Fine! You want to know what it was like? It was sex, Dean, no attachment, no emotion. Just sex. It was nothing like what you and I do. But she used to call me Sammy, almost like she was trying to be you, or something. I don't know; maybe she thought we were already together and she was trying to replace you, or she already knew about the things we felt for each other and weren't ready to admit yet. And she used to pretend like she cared about me like you do. At first it made me think of you and it got me off, which confused the hell outta me because I didn't know why. But I could still tell that she didn't care about me the way she pretended to. And I'd look at her when we were having sex or she was sucking my cock and hate her and then I'd hate myself. And I didn't want to do it anymore but then after I started drinking her blood, she cut herself one time and wouldn't let me drink until I was inside her. It became a usual thing until needing demon blood got me horny. And then we did stop having sex because every time I drank demon blood, it made me come. There! Is that what you wanted to know, Dean, what a sick freak I am?"

At the last four words, all of Sam's anger dissipated and he sat on the bed, feeling raw and defeated. Dean knew now, he knew everything. Dean stared at Sam wide-eyed and with his mouth hanging open.

"Jesus Sam, I had no idea. You used demon blood…to get off?"

There was an edge of revulsion and disbelief in Dean's voice and Sam's cheeks colored as he felt even more mortified and disgusted with himself. "Not at first, it didn't start out like that. But once we started, um…" he paused, "doing that, it became like a Pavlovian response, you know?"

"So, when you crave the blood do you still, you know…crave hot, freaky sex?"

"Uh…" Dammit, why did they have to start talking about this? Well, maybe it was better this way; at least he wasn't keeping anything from him anymore. "I don't crave the blood a whole lot anymore, but…yeah, sometimes."

Dean downed his drink and then picked up the bottle of whiskey, poured himself a generous glassful and shot it down. "Well, I'll tell you what: knowing this really makes me wish I could see that evil bitch again just so I could hang her up and melt her nice and slow in a vat of holy water." He looked thoughtful. "She knew how we felt, even before we did."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I guess she did. But Dean, that's why I know I'm not going to say 'yes' to Lucifer. All Ruby did was the same thing that every angel and demon has ever done, and that's use how we feel about each other against us. But we know what we're doing now and this time we're gonna do it right. We're gonna stop Lucifer, together."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I mean, you sure you know what we're doing? Out of all the times we've gotten each other killed, brought each other back, and screwed the pooch, you're saying that this is the time we're gonna get it right? It's the friggin' apocalypse, Sam! We've got no room for error!"

"I know that, Dean! But we've learned from our mistakes – I've learned from my mistakes – and I know that the only person I can trust is you. I'm in this with you, one hundred percent."

"Yeah." Dean nodded absently and sat silently for a moment and then gave Sam a half-smirk, even though in his eyes he still looked seriously freaked out. "So, she used to pretend she was me, huh?"

"Sort of. I mean, she always did kind of, but just in a twisted sort of way."

He sniggered. "She wasn't as good-looking as me."

Sam shook his head. "She was a piss-poor substitute; if I'd have known back then that I could have had the real thing – " He stopped, realizing too late that he was once again putting his foot in his mouth. There was no way he was going to imply that the start of the apocalypse was Dean's fault because he hadn't started sleeping with him sooner. "You wanna watch the other movie?"

Dean nodded and emptied his cup. "Sure."

.

After Christmas, Sam was sure that Dean wasn't going to want to touch him again for a while, but was surprisingly proved wrong the next evening when, as he was checking the Internet for demonic omens, Dean walked up behind him, shut his laptop, and then ran his hands up and down Sam's chest, began unbuttoning his shirt, and whispered, 'bed or floor,' into his ear. Dean actually seemed to take the news about the demon blood surprisingly well, although Sam couldn't be one hundred percent sure because they never talked about it again. He was still moody and withdrawn at times, but no more than before and Sam let it go because he really didn't want to talk about the blood and if Dean wanted to talk about whatever else was bothering him, he'd come to him eventually. He was drinking a lot, but that was pretty usual for Dean and other than that he was sleeping pretty regularly and functional. They settled into a routine, with Sam checking the news for anything apocalypse related while they did some small jobs in the meantime; a werewolf hunt in Red Bluff, California, taking out a vampire nest in Portland, Oregon, killing a shapeshifter in Reno, Nevada. At Sam's suggestion they took a little time off in between each hunt to earn some cash in case something big and bad came their way and they had to spend long periods of time without being able to get money again.

On February 12th, they were having a normal evening, with Sam at the laptop and Dean sitting at the edge of their bed with a needle and thread, mending a tear beside the back pocket on a pair of his jeans when Sam found an article that piqued his interest. "Hey Dean, check this out."

Dean stopped mid-stitch to get up and look over Sam's shoulder. "What ya got?"

"I think I just found us a really weird case. Olympia Fields, Illinois, a couple on a date came back to her place and apparently ate each other to death."

"To death? Wow, must have been hungry. Have the movie theater snacks really become that expensive?"

"Hilarious, Dean. Anyway, what do you say we pack up and leave first thing in the morning?"

Dean calmly walked back to the bed, picked back up his pants, and continued his stitching. "Sounds good. Illinois, here we come."


	37. The Sketchy Book of Chuck Shurley, Gent

Chuck groaned and rubbed two fists over his eyes as he stared into the cold, dark space of his bedroom. "Really, guys?" He shifted his head on the pillow and stared up at the blank ceiling as his mind vividly and unrelentingly played back his last vision. He was happy in a way for Sam and Dean, or as happy as someone could be for two people who had to resort to such a dysfunctional relationship because they were so royally boned by the universe, but his life would be so much easier if they weren't sleeping together. And then there were times, like now, that it was going to especially cause him trouble.

He lingered in his bed for a few minutes, then let out a long-suffering sigh and slowly dragged himself and a bottle of whiskey downstairs to his work desk. Running straight to his computer after a prophesy to prevent future graphic repeats of it had become commonplace since after he'd had his first sex dream about Sam and Dean in early September. Over the past five months, he'd seen the two of them have sex in almost every position imaginable and, while nothing could cleanse his brain of those images, writing it down right away while drinking a fifth of whiskey helped at least a little.

He took a swig from his bottle, sat in front of the blank screen of his computer and wondered what in the fuck he was going to do. Normally, he could cut out most of the stuff that made his books unpublishable – that is, full of incest – with minimal sexual subtext lingering between the brothers. Like he'd told the guys earlier, sometimes it took a massive amount of editing – leaving out exchanged meaningful stares, deleting pieces of conversations, cutting parts of scenes or even whole scenes entirely – and at times it had made the remaining parts awkward, unbalanced, or a little too short, but it was a small price to pay to keep his remaining fan base. But, as he thought about his latest vision, he realized that one scene was going to cause him some serious trouble, even with his normal editing approach. He couldn't just cut it; the scene was integral to the storyline, as it had important character development for Dean. It wouldn't work to just cut out the sexual content, either or none of the scene would make any sense. It was possible that even the rest of the story wouldn't make quite as much sense without it.

He opened up the heavily edited official transcript and began to type that out first. He began with the opening scene between the first two victims, Alice and Russell, finishing it with the detail about how Alice's intestines felt hot and chewy inside Russell's mouth, then moved on to Sam questioning Alice's roommate about what she'd seen. But then Sam came back to his and Dean's motel room and Chuck was stuck. As he'd already established, he obviously couldn't cut it, but there was also no way in hell that he could keep it as-is.

Well…maybe he could just…change the scene a little. Not much, but just enough to be able to omit the things he needed to. As he hit the first keystroke to the new scene, he felt himself break out into a little sweat. He'd never actually changed one of the scenes before. Omitting he was pretty good at, but…actually changing it? It felt odd for him to realize that he'd eeked out a small living as a fiction writer and yet, he was considering, for the first time in his life, actually writing fiction. And then it occurred to him that there were reasons, other than his fan base and lack of talent, why he shouldn't change it. He'd been given these visions for a reason; after all, he was writing the fucking Winchester Gospel, the holy testament that would one day be a part of the Bible, or some other equally holy book. It was one thing to omit some…controversial details, but this? On the other hand, he also probably shouldn't be writing gay incestuous sex into the Bible. It wouldn't be the first time incestuous sex was written in it, but knowing that didn't make him feel much better. After all, Sam and Dean were supposed to be heroes and, soulmates or not, how many people would still sympathize with them if they knew what they did? And if he wrote in this scene as-is, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do about their relationship.

He stared at the screen as he found himself waffling back and forth between wanting to alter the scene and feeling like he needed to finally come out and tell the full story of what had been going on between the Winchester brothers behind closed doors. As he considered his options, Chuck's thoughts went back once again to his fans. God, if he ever got to start publishing again…A Tale of Two Incestuous Brothers, written by Carver Edlund. He cringed. Other people had changed the Bible over the past several millennia…Technically, the current Bible was only 66 books because two thousand years ago, some monk decided to throw out the unpopular books and only keep the ones he liked in his translations. This wasn't a whole lot different than that, maybe even better… That guy threw out whole books, that paled in comparison to changing one little scene. He nodded to himself confidently. Yeah, of course it did.

He wrote out the newly constructed scene quickly; Sam, being Dean's brother and not his significant other, volunteered to stay in their room and do some work while Dean went out to a bar on Valentine's Day to get laid. That sounded like something Sam would do; Sam didn't really do casual sex, so he wouldn't want to go out himself. And because Chuck still had that "Unleash the Kraken!" Clash of the Titans movie quote in his head, thanks to Dean, who had repeated it ad nauseam since Christmas, he found himself including it in something Sam said when he encouraged Dean to go out. But Dean decided he didn't want to go out and get laid, making Sam concerned over Dean's passing on casual sex. He kept in as many original lines as he could and then finished the scene with Sam eyeing Dean up with concern and not any other kind of emotion. He read it over once, fixed a few awkwardly written phrases, then saved the document and minimized the window so he could start going through his complex list of files to the other version, the one that Dean had once sarcastically called "The Wincester Gospel." Really, Chuck didn't relish this thing's existence any more than Sam or Dean did, but he wrote in it just so the disturbing sexual images wouldn't come back and he could get a peaceful night's sleep. He took several more deep swigs of whiskey in preparation of writing the motel scene as he'd originally seen it. As he started to type, he began the scene with, "As Sam walked into his and Dean's motel room with a bag of fast food in hand…"

.

As Sam walked into his and Dean's motel room with a bag of fast food in hand, Dean was sitting at their small table in front of the laptop with his feet up. There was an open but untouched bottle of beer sitting beside him and he appeared bored and tired, the exact opposite of how Dean usually looked at the beginning of a case. Sam hunched his shoulders a little as he realized that his brother was in another one of his withdrawn moods. This was very odd; even when they were going through a lot of shit, Dean usually saved his moodiness for at least the middle of the hunt. He began talking to Dean about the case, hoping it might lift his spirits a little, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't going to help.

Dean looked thoroughly disgusted as he relayed to Sam what he'd seen at the coroner's office. "I mean, their stomachs were full, like Thanksgiving Dinner full." He grabbed his beer, slowly brought it to his mouth, and took a swig. "Talk about co-dependent."

Sam smiled a little as he thought about that doc at the mental institution calling his and Dean's relationship "dangerously co-dependent." God, if that guy had had any idea just how wrapped up in each other they really were… but if Dean was thinking about anything that'd happened back there, it couldn't be a good sign. A lot of heavy-hitting stuff had happened at that place, and Dean still wouldn't talk about what he'd experienced when they were there. With the shell-shocked expression that had washed over Dean the one and only time Sam had even tried to broach the subject, Sam was sure of at least two things: whatever Dean had experienced inside his own head was horrifyingly traumatic and, even if they lived a thousand years, his brother would never talk about it.

Sam ran a hand down his tie and sat opposite of Dean, contemplating his next move. He should do something to help pull Dean out of his slump, but he wasn't in the best place himself at the moment, either; he was feeling a little angry and aggressive from some unexpectedly strong demon blood cravings he'd been having since the second they'd hit town. They were stronger than anything he'd ever experienced since the height of his addiction when he was getting it regularly from Ruby and, as a result, he'd been walking around all day wanting to either punch or fuck everything and everybody who'd gotten in his way. Somehow, he needed to help his cravings and at the same time drag Dean out of his current mood and, fortunately, he had a pretty good idea of how to do it.

"Well, we've got our feelers out, not much more we can do tonight." He turned the laptop around and pulled it towards him. "Alright, I'm just gonna go through some files and then, since we're going out tonight, I'll grab a shower and get ready. What were you thinking? Strip bar?"

Dean eyed him up with a confused expression. "Wait, why are we going out?"

"No special reason really, but it's Valentine's Day, you usually go out, and…I don't know, thought it might be nice, thought you might want to."

Dean frowned. "Oh. Ah, yeah, well…" he got up from his chair, walked over to their cooler sitting on a nearby counter, threw open the lid, and grabbed a beer. "I don't know, guess I'm not feeling it this year."

"So, you're not into drinking and ogling half-naked women?"

Dean stopped to think about it. "Nah, I guess not."

"Huh. Well, okay. You just wanna skip straight to the sex?"

Dean put down his beer and gave a quick shrug of his shoulders, looking like a bored kid who didn't know what to do with his afternoon. "Nah, think I'll pass tonight. I'm feeling kind of tired." Sam's eyes widened and he blinked in surprise. It wasn't that Dean was turning down sex, but the way he was doing it; he actually looked bored over the idea of it. Dean returned a hard glare at Sam's wide-eyed astonishment. "What?"

"You don't want to have sex?"

"No."

"Like, at all?"

"Something wrong with that?"

"No, I guess…actually yes."

"What?"

"It's when a dog doesn't eat, that's when you know something's really wrong."

"Remarkably patronizing concern duly noted. Nothing's wrong, I'm not allowed one night to be tired and not in the mood?"

Sam squinted at him. "You're not in the _mood_?"

"Is there an echo in here? Come on, we gonna work or what?"

Sam quickly looked back down at the laptop screen, which at the moment was turned to a crime scene photo of the two vics. The camera angle showed a full view of Alice's face. He'd seen pictures of her, but the girl in the photo was almost unrecognizable; her nose was nothing more than a bloody, bitten-off stump, and she no longer had cheeks. And there were other parts of her missing too. He couldn't see the man's face, but what he could see wasn't pretty. Sam looked away from the screen and back up at Dean. He was really hoping Dean was going to say 'yes,' especially since he needed it so bad at the moment. He was still able to control the cravings and hide them from Dean, but sex would make doing that a lot easier. Dean was resolutely staring at the case file in front of him with an annoyed look on his face as every few seconds he glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye. Sam looked down to the photo. This picture was grizzly and terrible, why was even the sight of blood making him horny? Holy mother of God, he was sick. If only he could get laid, he was sure that the physical release would make him feel better. He could just go to the bathroom and try to jerk off, but that wasn't nearly as good and it wouldn't help for long. He wanted one of them to take it hard and punishing, and he didn't much care which one of them it was. Obviously, he loved to top and be in control, but with Dean's surly mood, there was no way he was going to get Dean to agree to bottom. That was fine though, Dean could fuck him, as long as he did it good and hard. He wanted to really feel it – Dean's hip bones slapping his ass with every hard thrust and fingers leaving bruises on his hips from being held in place as Dean took him, the sheer adrenaline from the mix of pleasure and pain bringing him quickly over the edge… it seemed unwise to push, but maybe he'd think of something later. It usually wasn't hard to convince Dean to have sex.

"Sam, for the last time, I'm fine! Would you stop looking at me and do some fucking work already?"

Sam quickly shifted his eyes back to the laptop. "Yeah, fine."

Later that night, as Sam lay in bed next to Dean, the thirst for demon blood clawing at his throat and his body bow-tight from the effort he had to make to not go mad and run out into the night to hunt down a demon to drink, he looked over at Dean's sleeping form and felt resentful. Dean's face looked completely untroubled and uninterested in anyone else's problems. Normally, the oddness of that look on Dean would make Sam smile, but not tonight. He needed Dean right now and so damn much that his brother could probably never fully understand the depths of it. Making a split second decision, Sam crawled under the covers, deftly unzipped Dean's jeans, reached inside his boxers, took his still soft cock out and gently began suckling the tip. Okay, so Sam was going to admit that it was a little underhanded, but he was pretty sure Dean would appreciate it. After all, what guy wouldn't like to be woken up to getting a blowjob? He'd happily let Dean do it to him any day of the year.

After about thirty seconds when he was finally semi-hard, he heard Dean's sleepy, deep, groggy voice. "Hm-mm-wha? Sam? What're you doing?" In answer, Sam merely hummed a little around the hardening cock-head, but Dean's response was a bit different than he'd envisioned. He sighed deeply and turned the covers down to look at Sam's face. "Sam, I told you, I'm not in the mood. Get offa me."

Sam took his mouth off of Dean and looked at him, feeling wounded. "You don't like it?"

"Well, it feels good, if that's what you mean. But, look, I just don't want to, okay? Not now. I just want to sleep."

Dean lay his head firmly back on his pillow, looking more old and weary than actually tired. Sam felt disconcerted and a little concerned, much like he had earlier over Dean's passing on both a strip club and sex, but he also felt himself being filled with rage that was so strong and irrational that he knew it had to be caused by little more than his demon blood craving. He tried, poorly, to control it.

"Fine," he snapped. He threw the rest of the covers off of him, got up, and walked to the bathroom to jack off, hearing the swooshing of fabric from behind him as Dean stayed in the bed and pulled back up his pants. Five minutes later, Sam came back out of the bathroom and got into bed again with Dean, only feeling a slight edge taken off of his need. If things stayed like this, he was going to have to jack off first thing in the morning too, just to be able to stay civil with other human beings. From the other side of the bed, he heard Dean sigh as he pretended to be asleep and Sam knew that he'd have to jack off first thing in the morning because, for whatever reason, his own hand was the only thing he was going to be getting for a little while.


	38. Raining Blood

Sam's posture was more upright than usual and Dean scowled as they hurried towards the double doors at the end of the hospital corridor leading to the morgue. They were each pretending that they were in a bad mood only because of the three deaths last night that they'd been unable to stop and both knew the other was lying. Sam had already masturbated three times that morning and knew that Dean was starting to raise an eyebrow to his unnaturally high sex drive, but they weren't talking about it. For his part, Dean was acting oddly, himself: he'd turned Sam down for sex when they first woke up, had barely touched his breakfast, and hadn't played any music in the car all day.

The delicious scent of iron and salt with just a dash of sulfur filled the otherwise antiseptic air as a man in his mid-thirties wearing a blue suit and carrying a suitcase strolled out from behind the double doors. Sam felt his mouth water and his dick harden. _Oh shit_. Ruby's knife was snugly tucked into his belt, but he couldn't just pull it out and gank the thing in the middle of the hospital. Besides the witnesses, what would happen when he saw the blood? He remembered how disgusted Dean had looked the one and only time he'd actually watched him drink a demon almost a year ago and he couldn't withstand seeing Dean look at him like that again in his lifetime. And while he might be able to control himself, he had no idea how was he going to explain to Dean that he could smell demons. He couldn't even explain it to himself; this was a first for him. But, as the familiar feelings of arousal, need, and shame filled him, he knew that there could be no other explanation.

It didn't occur to him how shamelessly he was gawking at the guy until Dean whispered, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He'd wait until he was alone and then kill it; he could figure out how he'd word things to Dean later. They kept walking and Sam took one last fleeting look at the demon as he headed through the open doors leading out of the ward. Why was his craving for the blood so intense?

"Uh, Sam?" Sam felt Dean's arm on his chest. He stopped, looked at his brother, and blushed. Dean was staring down at his crotch with his mouth hanging open in surprise; his erection hadn't gone unnoticed. "You must've really liked that guy."

Sam blushed. "No, that's not it." Dean raised an eyebrow skeptically. "I just – I really." He sighed. "I need it. Sex. I don't know what's happening to me lately, but…I just need it."

Dean gestured to his crotch. "Well, yeah; you can't walk into the coroner's office like that." He looked around at the different offices on either side of the corridor and then grabbed his arm. "Come on; we'll take care of it."

The door to the laundry room was just a few feet behind them. They quickly shut the door behind them and were greeted with pitch darkness and the strong smell of cotton and soap. Sam groped along the smooth, glossily painted wall and soon felt the raised, plastic finish of a light switch cover, which he switched on to reveal a messy, yellow room full of tables containing stacks of white linens. Beside him, Dean already has his shirt untucked and was busy unbuckling his belt.

"Alright, so how do you want to do this?" He left his belt hanging open and went for his button and zipper. "What's gonna do it for ya the fastest?"

"Uh…" Sam felt a little surprised at Dean's matter-of-fact tone but, following his lead, he moved his hands to his own belt. "I want you to give it to me hard; I want to really feel it afterwards."

Dean stepped out of his shoes and pushed down his pants and boxers. His cock was still soft. "Okay, but I don't have any lube on me."

Sam stepped out of his pants and then reached into his suit jacket, pulled out the little bottle he'd started carrying everywhere, and handed it out to Dean. "Here."

Dean strolled over into Sam's space and took the lube with one hand and put it in his jacket pocket, then pushed him up against the wall and reached over with the other hand and locked the door. Sam felt his own bobbing, hard, leaking length poking Dean's completely flaccid one and grabbed Dean's face and pulled him in for a soft kiss. He wanted this right the fuck now, but first he had to get Dean in the mood and he knew that Dean usually liked it when things started out slow and gentle. Dean closed his eyes and ran his fingers through Sam's hair as they kissed, but Sam grabbed his hands and moved them underneath his still buttoned shirt to touch his chest and stomach. While Dean's hands roamed, Sam slid a hand down to Dean's cock and began slowly stroking it. Dean was slowly growing hard in his hands and Sam broke the kiss and began licking and sucking on Dean's favorite spot just behind his ear to speed things up a little. Dean moaned and bucked his hips.

"Yeah, right there," he whispered, "that feels good."

Sam moved his hand faster and began tugging a little harder on Dean's still hardening shaft, then dropped to his knees, kissed the tip of Dean's cock, and then opened up and slid the head into his mouth. He started by gripping the base while sucking on and sliding his tongue along the head for a little bit and then slid his mouth down the shaft and started bobbing up and down. He grabbed the backs of Dean's thighs and held him in place as he sucked and before long, Dean was moaning quietly and his breath was coming out in ragged gasps.

"God, Sam – stop – stop – I'm ready."

Sam pulled back and let Dean fall out of his mouth with a wet pop, then stood up, turned around, jutted out his hips, and braced his hands against the wall. "I don't want you to prep me too much."

From behind him he head the cap open to the bottle of lube and the wet sound of liquid being squirted out from the bottle. "Whatever you want."

Two of Dean's fingers petted around his entrance and then slid inside. It hurt a little and so he pushed back against the fingers. "Deeper."

Dean did as asked and then moved his fingers in a scissoring motion. Even though he'd told Dean not to prep him too much, Dean kept scissoring and trying to open him up for over a minute until Sam told him to stop.

Dean stopped moving his fingers. "You ready for another?"

Sam shook his head. "No, just do it, Dean."

Dean removed his fingers and Sam turned his neck to see Dean drizzling lube on his cock. He then stepped forward and kissed Sam on the mouth as he positioned himself behind him and slid himself in. As the head breached the first layer of muscle, Sam slammed his eyes shut and gasped; it felt like he was being split open. They both knew he hadn't been prepped properly and his muscles were still tight. Dean stopped.

"You okay?"

"Yeah; just gimme a sec… k, keep going."

Dean slowly pushed himself in until Sam could feel Dean's balls pressed up tightly against his ass. Sam clenched around the intrusion and enjoyed the sensation of Dean just being so deeply inside him.

"Go ahead Dean, move."

As asked, Dean began thrusting deep inside him. Sam almost instantly felt the adrenaline high he was looking for and before he knew it, he was begging for it deeper, rougher, and harder. But it wasn't after long that it felt like he was beginning to become numbed; Dean didn't feel as deep or big inside of him and the sex was starting to lose its pleasure. It wasn't until Dean fell out that he realized that it was because he'd lost his erection. Sam stood up straight and turned around to face his brother. Dean was looking down at his nearly limp penis with a look of mortification.

"Dean?"

"I'm – this has never happened before."

Even through his burning need, when looking at Dean's pained expression, Sam couldn't bring himself to feel anything other than sorry for his brother. He reached down to the floor and grabbed his boxers. "It's okay; it happens; we're in a public place and you weren't in the mood for it when we started. It makes sense."

He raised a foot to slide his boxers on over one of his legs, but promptly put his foot back down when Dean dropped to his knees in front of him. "Wait."

As Dean sucked him, Sam rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes; Dean had always sucked his dick like he was on some kind of mission to give him the most pleasure possible. He was the most unselfish lover he'd ever had. And lately Dean had been trying to learn how to deepthroat, for which Sam was very thankful. He'd done it a handful of times already and now was trying it again, he was sure, to make up for the unsatisfying sex. Sam kept himself from bucking his hips so he wouldn't accidentally choke Dean and tried to quiet his moans as he felt a swell of pleasure from his approaching orgasm.

.

Sam stood in front of the suitcase the demon had dropped during the fight. Dean gaped at him in amazement. "How did you know it was a demon?"

"I…" Sam paused, contemplating his options. He really wanted to lie but as he looked at Dean's curious and skeptical face, knew he couldn't. "I could smell him."

"What do you mean you could smell him? Sulfur?"

Sam looked down and stared unseeingly at the suitcase. "I could smell his blood."

Dean also turned to the suitcase. He was quiet for several seconds and then leaned over the case. "Is that toilet paper on the bottom?"

Sam looked to where Dean was pointing and saw that, indeed, it was toilet paper. "I stopped at a bathroom on the way home."

This was true; after he'd wiped the blood from the knife, Sam had stopped with the suitcase into a public bathroom to jerk off. He ripped off the paper and stared blankly at the black leather case.

"What the hell does a demon got to do with this anyway?"

Sam sighed. "Believe me, I got no idea."

Dean's concerned and slightly disgusted face told him that he was putting the dots together a little too quickly. "You okay?"

Sam tried a smile. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be alright."

Dean eyed him up from head to toe. He wasn't buying it. But then he looked away and Sam knew that he wasn't about to try and talk to him about it, either. Even if Dean had figured out that he was having the demon blood cravings, neither of them wanted to confirm it by saying it out loud. It also wasn't like it was news to Dean that he still had cravings. Dean knew that he'd been dealing with them for a while now and had resisted caving into them for a long time. All Sam needed to do was keep at it and, eventually Dean would learn to trust him again.

.

An hour after opening the case, Sam stared at himself in the mirror and dabbed his face with a wet cloth. His hunger for the blood had suddenly gotten worse a half hour ago, which, he was sure, was the exact moment when Famine rode into town. He was jonesing for it so bad, it felt like he was in the middle of a withdrawal. He studied his face, half-expecting to see the veins in his face turn black or his eyes change color, but saw nothing. _Alright, get it together there, Sam,_ he told himself, _you're fine, everything is fine. You don't have that shit in your system, you're not poisoned with it, okay?_ In the next room, he head Dean and Cas talking. From the sound of Dean's traveling voice, he was pacing the room.

"War got his mojo from this ring. After we cut it off, he just tucked tail and ran. And everybody who'd been affected by him, it was like they woke up from a dream. You think Famine's got a class ring too?"

"I know he does."

"Well, okay; let's track him down and get to chopping."

Dean wanted to go straight to Famine? Famine had an entourage of demons with him…delicious, juicy demons…his mouth watered. Shit. He couldn't go. It didn't matter how strong his willpower was; he was too weak. He'd drink them all in front of Dean, turn himself into a monster, and die. He blotted his sweaty face with the towel some more as he half-listened to Dean and Cas argue about Castiel's new hunger for ground beef.

"Sam, let's roll!"

"Dean, I can't." He stepped out from the bathroom and stared at the floor. "I can't go."

"What do you mean?"

"I think it got to me, Dean. I think I'm hungry for it."

Dean's eyes hardened. "Hungry for what?"

"You know."

Dean gave him that same disgusted look he'd given him before, like he wasn't his Sammy anymore, like he wasn't even human. "Demon blood?" Sam hanged his head. "You gotta be kidding me." He turned to Cas. "You got to get him out of here. You got to beam him to, like, Montana. Anywhere but here."

Castiel looked sympathetic but resolute. "It won't work. He's already infected. The hunger is just gonna travel with him."

Dean looked so helpless that it made Sam hate himself. If only he could be stronger, if he just hadn't gone off with Ruby in the first place, none of this would be happening. "Well, then, what do we do?"

Sam swallowed hard. "You go cut that bastard's finger off. But, Dean...before you go, you better..." He hated having to ask for this… "you better lock me down - but good."

They had a pair of handcuffs in their trunk. Sam had been fantasizing about the two of them using the cuffs, but his dreams had never gone quite like this. For starters, he always saw both of them naked and smiling at each other when using them, never pictured Castiel standing in the room, and while he usually imagined him being the one to use them on Dean, during the times that he saw it the other way around he was never being handcuffed to a sink drainpipe.

Dean clicked the second cuff in place and gave him a weak smile. "Alright, well, just hang in there. We'll be back as soon as we can."

Sam nodded. "Be careful. And... hurry."

Dean patted him on the back and closed the bathroom door behind him. Sam heard a loud scuffling noise as something heavy was moved in front of the door and seconds later the front door opened and closed.

.

Three hours later, Sam was still sitting on the bathroom floor and resting his head against the wall tile, feeling like a sick dog craving a poisoned steak. God, he needed the blood, he needed the blood, he _needed_ the fucking blood. The taste of it as it sloshed over his tongue, the sense of power that he got as the stuff swirled around in his system. He yanked at the cuffs. He wasn't even hard anymore; the hunger was so strong that his mind couldn't focus on sex. His body felt like it was on fire and he was sweating and feverish. _Blood, blood, blood <.i>. It felt like blood was everywhere, just out of reach. He was even beginning to wonder if it was going to come out of faucet if he pulled the tap. There were no demons close by, he was sure of that; they didn't know where he was. But he could still smell them, as if they were just outside the motel room. Fuck it, he'd break the sink drainpipe; he needed blood more than food, water, more even than fucking air. _Now, now, now. Blood, blood, blood_. The motel front door opened and closed again and Sam suddenly felt his mind clear a little. Dean. Somehow knowing that his big brother was on the other side of the door made him feel stronger and sane. Dean was here and that meant everything was going to be okay. But why was he back when he was still hungry? If anything, his hunger was stronger than ever…_

_"Guys? Guys? What happened? I don't think it worked, I think I'm still…" He was surprised when, instead of Dean and Cas, two demons, one man and one woman dressed in black suits walked through the door. "…Still hungry."_

_The demons leered and the woman talked about breaking a few pieces off of him before bringing him to the boss. Sam eyed up their jugulars. There'd be a few pieces broken off, alright… It was too late now. As they advanced towards him, Sam felt a simultaneous rush of elation and self-loathing as he anticipated what he was about to do next._

_._

_Sam slipped through the back door of the Biggerson's restaurant. There was no doubt in his mind that this was Famine's hide-out; he'd tracked the smell of demon blood all the way from the motel. Sure enough, as he waded through the dead bodies in the kitchen, he heard Dean's voice from a distance:_

_"So this is your big trick? Huh? Making people cuckoo for cocoa puffs?" He didn't sound hurt, just angry. The voice was coming from the serving area in the next room. Sam took a step towards it and in doing so sidestepped a pool of vomit and pills and the young waitress it belonged to, who was lying on her side with her eyes and mouth wide open and a small stack of money sticking out from her cleavage._

_"Doesn't take much – hardly a push." Famine's voice was weak and shaky, like an old man's. As Sam crept past a sink, he saw a towel – all white except for a small blood splatter stain on the corner. He grabbed it and wiped as much blood off of his face as he could. "Oh, America," Famine's condescending voice traveled from the next room, "all-you-can-eat, all the time. Consume, consume. A swarm of locusts in stretch pants. And yet…" His voice was starting to get quiet and Sam carefully stepped over the dead body of a young man with fries and blood coming from his mouth and badly burned, almost melted hands, "…you're all still starving because hunger doesn't just come from the body, it also comes from the soul."_

_"It's funny, it doesn't seem to be coming from mine."_

_"Yes. I noticed that." Shit. Famine sounded amused, which was no doubt a bad sign. Damn Dean and his big mouth. What was Famine going to make him hungry for? In his haste, Sam almost ran into a set of pans hanging beside his head, but dodged them just in time. "Have you wondered why that is? How you could even walk in my presence?"_

_"Well, I like to think it's because of my strength of character."_

_"I disagree." There was a pause and then Sam heard Dean suppressing groans of pain. The kitchen was too cluttered with obstacles; if he kept moving at this slow, cautious pace, he wouldn't get to Dean until sometime next year. "Yes, I see." The groaning stopped and Famine laughed. "That's one deep, dark nothing you got there, Dean." Sam leapt over a cluster of dropped kitchen utensils, narrowly missed banging his hip against a countertop, and made it to the doorway. Dean was being held in place by two mouth-watering demons and standing in front of an old man in a wheelchair, who by his voice Sam recognized as Famine. "Can't fill it, can you? Not with food or drink. Not even with sex."_

_"Oh, you're so full of crap."_

_Dean was smirking, but Sam could see it all over his face; he knew Famine was telling the truth. That was why lately he wasn't hungry, or drinking, or able to even perform for sex. Before this case, as things had gotten darker for them Dean had only wanted more booze, red meat, and sex. Since Christmas, in fact, he'd been almost insatiable. But all he was doing was trying to fill an empty void and the worse things got, the bigger that hole became. And now he didn't want anything because his soul had become the void and it was no longer hungry for anything._

_"Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me! I can see inside you, Dean." Dean was sporting a nasty cut beside his left eye and, judging by the way his eyes kept fluttering closed, he probably had a nasty concussion. "I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just…keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already dead."_

_Sam had heard enough. He stepped out from behind the doorway and into view. "Let him go."_

_Famine turned around in his wheelchair and for the first time Sam saw his face. The old man was small, shriveled, and decrepit. He smiled warmly at Sam, as if he was a long-lost friend. "Sam."_

_"Sammy, no!"_

_Sam shifted his gaze from Famine and over to Dean, waiting to see the look he deserved of hatred and disgust in his brother's eyes, but it wasn't there. Dean looked shocked and scared, but not because Sam had managed to break free and was now a monster; he was shocked that he'd given in and scared that he'd lost him. He'd believed in him. Sam looked at his brother and felt like his stomach had dropped out from beneath him and then over to Famine with rage. Famine, however, didn't appear even slightly perturbed over his obvious hatred; he was still smiling like a giddy child. Two of the five demons standing around Famine moved towards him and Sam immediately set his feet firmly in the ground and moved his hands into a protective, fighting stance._

_"Stop!" Listening to Famine, the demons hesitantly stopped advancing. "No one lays a finger on this sweet little boy. Sam, I see you got the snack I sent you."_

_"You sent?"_

_"Don't worry. You're not like everyone else. You'll never die from drinking too much. You're the exception that proves the rule. Just the way...Satan wanted you to be." Sam felt a chill go down his spine and to his heart. Once again, he'd played right into evil's plans and he was right where Hell and Lucifer wanted him. "So…" Famine gestured towards the demons, "…cut their throats. Have at them!"_

_Dean almost looked like he was going to cry. "Sammy, no!"_

_"Please!" Famine cried happily, "Be my guest!"_

_Sam looked into Dean's terrified eyes and thought back to what he'd said to Dean on Christmas Day: _"we've learned from our mistakes – I've learned from my mistakes – and I know that the only person I can trust is you. I'm in this with you, one hundred percent."_ The hunger was so intense that it felt like it was burning his insides. But he'd learned from his mistakes. He knew drinking blood never went anywhere good. And, most of all, he believed in Dean and their partnership. They were going to stop the apocalypse, even if it was the last thing they did and, in all probability, it would be. But when he died, he knew what side he was going to be on and who he was dying with. He closed his eyes, held out his hand, and concentrated on exorcising the demons._

_._

_As they walked towards the exit of the Biggerson's restaurant, Dean grabbed a rag by a sink, turned on the tap, and wetted it. "Here. Clean yourself up, you look like you just earned your red wings."_

_Sam made a disgusted face. "Dude! Seriously?"_

_Dean shook the towel in his face. "Have you seen yourself?"_

_He took the towel from Dean and scrubbed his face. "Nice, Dean."_

_"How many did he send?"_

_Sam finished wiping off his face and paused. "Two."_

_"And you drank them both."_

_Sam threw the towel down and stormed out of the restaurant. Dean followed and quickly overtook him so he was in the front again when they got to the Impala, where Castiel had already beamed himself to the backseat. Dean opened the driver's side door but instead of stepping inside, he leaned against it._

_"You know where we're going, right?"_

_Sam opened his own door and sighed. "Yeah, I know."_

_Dean looked awkwardly down to the ground. "It's only for your own good, Sammy."_

_Sam nodded. "I know. I want it out of my system, just as much as you do."_

_Dean frowned, climbed inside, and slammed the door behind him. They rode in silence all the way to Bobby's._


	39. We've Only Just Begun

"Hiya, Sam! Long time, no see!"

Sam didn't need to see the flash of yellow in the man's eyes to recognize Azazel, still riding that middle-aged hospital janitor who he'd possessed for almost a year. He glared hatefully and fought his leather restraints. "You're not real."

Yellow Eyes smirked and took a few leisurely steps over to him. "Bingo, Kiddo. I'm not real. Your half-drunk, incompetent brother shot me." He sat down next to Sam on the bed and looked blankly at the wall in front of him. Sam felt the depression of the mattress from his weight and tried his best to move his body away. He understood why Dean had strapped him down the moment they'd gotten to the panic room, but the utter helplessness he now felt made the hallucinations just that much worse. "I tell ya what, I brought him back after that car accident and that's the thanks I get. Oh well." He turned to smirk at Sam. "Speaking of Dean, how is your brother these days?" Sam looked up at his arms and yanked more forcefully at the straps and Yellow Eyes laughed. "I heard the two of you have been getting real cozy lately."

Sam sneered at him. "Go to Hell."

"You forget Sammy old boy, I was already there." Sam continued to fight his restraints; he just wanted to even get across the room and away from the bastard, but instead Yellow Eyes slapped him playfully on the ribs and stood up so he was standing right behind the restraints, still in Sam's line of sight. "Aw, come on, don't be like that. I'm happy for ya, kiddo, I really am. Knew it was going to happen sooner or later – well, I'd been really betting on sooner; when I planned for Jake to kill you, I was afraid Dean might not sell his soul for you if he wasn't already getting a piece of that ass of yours, but I underestimated that self-destructive streak of his."

Sam stopped cold and stared at him. "What?"

Yellow Eyes smirked and crossed his arms. "Well, come on, Sammy, you were a new babe out of the woods, hadn't hunted in a long time, had barely killed a few creatures, and you were so hung up on how killing people was always _wrong_ , did you really think you had a chance in hell of surviving that contest I set up?" He shook his head condescendingly. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. I thought you were smarter than that." He crouched down so his face was level with Sam's. "You had to die, Sam. Had to. It had to be you. And Dean had to bring you back. There was no other way for it all to work out. And all the red tape I had to go through just to get his soul! If he hadn't made that deal…" he paused as if he was reminiscing, "…Sometimes I wanted to make you two crazy kids fuck, but I couldn't do that either. Not without you knowing it was me who set it up. Well, at least you're at it now. Oh, the fun I would have exploiting the hell out of that if I was still alive…"

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

Sam swung his head around wildly, but all he saw was an empty room.

.

Sam felt the hot, sick, trickle of blood over his stomach after Alistair made his first cut with the X-ACTO knife. His eyes crossed as white-hot pain and the sensation of his skin separating followed the path of the knife, thrashed on the cot, willing it to break, and screamed. Alistair stopped mid-cut, raised his bloody hands and knife, and gave Sam a cool, detached look.

"I don't understand why you're screaming yet, Sam. Like the Carpenters said, 'we've only just begun.'" He lowered his hands and the slicing picked up again, following the line of his abdominal muscles with surgical precision. "You know this part of the process." He grinned at Sam's scream of agony. "Trying to get all that delicious demon blood out of your system, it's hard." The small, cold instrument was laid on Sam's chest and he shivered. Alistair shuffled his feet across the floor as he took a few steps towards Sam, then bent over so their faces were less than a foot apart. "And painful." Alistair's breath came out in puffs and blew across his face. Sam turned his head and held his breath; it smelled like rancid flesh and stale blood. "Can you feel it, Sam? Can you feel your body fighting it? You were meant to have the blood inside of you. It makes you strong, Sam."

"Guh!" Dammit, what the hell did Bobby do to make restraints so tough? "You call this strong?"

"Not now. But when that blood is coursing through your veins…" he picked back up the knife, "well, you were strong enough to kill me." The next cut deepened the groove he had already made. Sam panted from agony and fear and tears sprung into his eyes.

"Dean!" If only Dean came in, if he could just see him, then maybe he could make the hallucinations go away, make the pain go away. "Dean! Help me, please!"

Alistair's laugh was low and terrible. "Sam, Sam, Sam."

Sam felt more pain and heard a sickening, wet squish. The cuts were deep enough that they should have gone past his nerves and he should have gone into shock; it should have started to hurt less. But it wasn't happening that way; every cut was even more painful than the last. His body shuddered, the tears fell freely down his cheeks, making them feel wet, itchy, and salty, and he gritted his teeth and grunted to suppress his screams. Alistair stared down and concentrated on his work.

"I'm disappointed in you. Your reputation is for being the smart one. Of course, out of you and Dean, maybe that explains why. Your brother isn't a thinker; it's all shoot this, stab that. It's a trend I've found in the new generation of humans since I've been back up from Hell – "

"Guh! Agh!" Sam's whole torso felt like it was on fire.

"Instant gratification, that's what too many people want nowadays. They want something without having to really think about it or make a plan. That much I do have to hand to you, Sam, is that you do think things through. But Dean…" He shook his head, "he never sees the bigger picture, does he? No working with monsters or demons, no sacrificing human life." Alistair lifted his arms and Sam saw a thick coat of his own blood on Alistair's hands and shirt sleeves. "In this line of work, you need to get your hands dirty sometimes, don't you think?"

"Stop! Please – please, just stop!"

"Thank you, Sam; so polite, I still appreciate that."

The next cut was made in the center of his chest. "Agh! Ow! Guys! Guys, are you out there? Help me, please let me out! Dean? Dean! Dean, help me, please help me! Dean!"

"Sam, it's not that I don't appreciate the screaming; it's what I live for. But let's try some unintelligible screams of agony for a while; you may as well stop screaming for Dean." He spat his name as if it was some particularly nasty strain of disease, then leaned forward and lightly caressed Sam's face with the side of the knife blade. "Do you hear him out there talking with your little angel friend? He can hear you, but he's not coming in. Why do you think that is? Come now, I'm sure you can figure it out. How do you think he felt when he saw your face covered in blood back there? You think you still looked like his little brother? That you even looked human? You don't think that if he didn't harbor some silly sentimental feelings towards you that he wouldn't have put you down like the animal you are? Do you really think he wants to see you now, his monster brother? So…" he dragged the blade down Sam's jaw just hard enough to break the skin and draw a line of blood, "looks like you're all mine for the next however long we've got here. We don't even know how long that is, do we, since you never finished your detox before."

He reached into Sam's chest and he felt blinding pain radiating from there outward, he shuddered so hard that his entire body raised of the bed, and his brain felt numb from the sensory overload. He should have passed out, he was sure. But he wasn't; he was staying awake for everything Alistair had planned for him.

"God! Help me! Please, somebody help me!"

"Settle in, Sam; we're going to be spending a lot of time together."

.

Sam stared down at the ragged edges of a plunging wound in his abdomen. Alistair had been gone for over an hour, but the wounds remained. He couldn't remember that happening before and hoped it didn't mean that the demon blood had finally managed to tear him apart. He'd drunk more demon blood back there than he ever had in one go in his entire life. Maybe he couldn't die from drinking too much, but Famine had never said anything about physical withdrawal afterwards; however Satan wanted him to be, that description did not include him ever quitting the blood. He was hit by a wave of nausea at seeing what a horror show his torso had become. His half-exposed heart had started speeding up a couple of minutes ago and had finally accelerated to a pace he'd thought impossible for humans; the constant vibration of it inside him was making him sick. He just hoped he wouldn't throw up; he'd screamed himself raw over the past three hours of torture and for the hour more that he'd spend still screaming for Dean. His left arm ached and he began panting for breath.

"Dean!"

Yes, this was it, he was going to die. He wasn't interested in preventing it or trying to prolong the inevitable. It wasn't that he wanted to die, but these were just the facts; he'd gotten caught up in a demon, drank blood, and this was the price he was going to pay. But, as selfish as it was, he didn't want to die alone.

"Dean! Dean, please!"

There was nothing but dead silence outside the door. Dean wasn't coming; he might not even be outside the door anymore. He felt a hard clench in his chest and the next moment, the world went black.

.

"Sam? Sam, are you okay?"

Sam opened his eyes. The world was filmy and unfocused, but he didn't need to see to know who was in the room with him. "Dean?"

"Sammy? Hey – hey, are you okay?"

Vague, blurry, dark shapes eventually became clearer, to flesh tones with shades of green underneath. His surroundings became lighter and lighter, beating back the black around the edges and then the worried face of his brother, sitting beside him on the bed, finally came into focus. His eyes quickly shot down to his chest and stomach. Everything was back in place, without even so much as a blood stain on his flannel shirt. Thank God.

"Dean?"

Dean smiled. "Oh, thank God. You had us worried there for a minute. Here." He touched the rim of a cup of water to Sam's mouth. "Drink."

Sam raised his head as much as he could in his restraints and gratefully accepted the water. It splashed over his parched lips and tongue and slid down his hoarse throat. "What happened?"

"Uh, you were screaming and then all of sudden you just stopped. I got in here and you weren't breathing. I thought…" Dean wiped the hair from Sam's forehead. "Well, you're breathing now, that's all that matters. Glad I was able to save you at least this time, wish I could say the same for back there with Famine."

Sam winced. "Yeah, I guess beaming me to Montana was a better idea than we thought."

Dean snorted derisively and shook his head. "I should have seen the signs. Hell, I think I sort of did, I just couldn't deal with it just then."

Sam squinted and scrunched his eyebrows together. "There wasn't really anything for you to do about it, Dean. It was on me to keep it under control."

"Come on, Sam, that's a load of crap and you know it. We both know your little trick to keep it under control. But I didn't wanna have sex for, like, two days and that's all it took for you to start sucking down demon blood."

"What? That's what you think?"

Dean stood up and gestured an arm towards him. "Well, what else am I supposed to think, Sam? First I find out that you use sex to deal with all your demon blood crap and then you're all over me the second we hit town, I can't give it to you and this is what happens!"

Sam's eyes widened in mortification. "Dean, no, this isn't about that, I don't use you to help with the demon blood, I've never done that –"

"Never? Oh, you mean before Famine came to town." Sam stared; as wrong as he knew he was for doing it, he couldn't deny what had happened in that hospital laundry room. "Right. Well, guess there's no way for me to prove it, so let's just say this was the first time. So, what about the next time? What happens then?"

"There's not going to be a next time."

Dean walked over to the little sink by the wall and leaned against it. "Shit Sam, I know I said before that I'd do anything to save you, but this…" He shook his head. "So this is what I have to do now? I gotta fuck my own brother for the rest of my life just to keep you in line? Make sure you don't turn darkside and say 'yes' to Lucifer?"

Sam winced. He and Dean used that word with each other but not like this, like it was some disgusting, filthy thing. "Don't say it like that. Dean, I've never fucked you, not once."

"Yeah, okay, whatever, Sam."

"No!" He was pleading. "Dean, no. It's never been like that. I have sex with you because – because –"

"Because what?"

"Because I love you, okay? And I want to be with you."

"Yeah," Dean nodded, "you too. Just didn't think I'd be doing this for the rest of my life."

Tears pushed behind his eyes. He turned his head away from Dean and fought to hold them back. "You mean Lisa and Ben."

Dean shrugged. "Doesn't matter now, 'cause it looks like my dreams are all taking a backseat. Again. Because of your sorry ass."

"Dean, please –"

Sam turned back to face his brother but was shocked to find an empty room.

.

Dean had to help Sam stand when he finally stumbled out from the panic room 18 hours after chucking him in. He hadn't shown any signs of demon blood withdrawal for over an hour and Dean was more than eager to get him the hell out of that room. When he walked in to retrieve him, he was unnerved by his brother's appearance; he was pale, shaky, dehydrated, and exhausted. But the haunted look was the worst of all. It was even more intense than those weeks after the Mystery Spot in Florida; his eyes were scared, despondent, and somehow eerily… empty. That was really the only word he could use to describe it. When Dean flung Sam's arm around his shoulders and wrapped an arm around his waist, Sam flinched away. Dean only held onto him tighter.

"Come on, it's okay, I gotcha."

Sam let himself be led from the room and up the two flights of stairs to their bedroom, where Dean gently laid Sam down on the bed. Afterwards, Sam lay completely still with only the gentle rise and fall of his chest to indicate that he was alive. Dean picked up Sam's legs to lay him vertically and then went for the laces on one of Sam's boots, quickly loosening them. After his boots were laying by the foot of the bed, he kneeled over Sam and began unbuttoning his shirt. Sam watched him with half-open eyes.

"Dean, stop. Don't gotta take care of me."

"What are you talking about Sam? Of course I take care of you; you know I'd do anything for you."

Inexplicably, Sam cringed. Dean made quick work of the rest of the buttons and helped Sam slip the shirt off. "Do you want to wear your t-shirt?"

Sam shut his eyes. "Yeah. I just really wanna go to sleep, okay?"

Dean lightly touched Sam's chest. "Okay Sammy, sure. You gotta be tired. Just, wait a minute…" He grabbed the pitcher of water and the empty glass he'd set out by the bed earlier, filled the glass, and then held it out to Sam. "Drink this; it'll help."

Sam stared at the glass silently for a moment, then turned away from him and buried his face into the pillow. Several seconds later, Dean saw his brother's body shaking in silent sobs. He scrubbed a hand down his face; God knows what Sam went through down there when he was going through detox. The only thing Dean had to compare it to was Hell and he was pretty sure it wasn't the same, even if Sam's desperate, pained screams had sounded a lot like his own. He threw off his boots, turned off the light, and climbed into bed beside Sam, entirely unsure of what to do next. After a full minute of silent debate, he turned on his side facing Sam's back and ran a hand tentatively up and down Sam's bicep.

"Sammy, it'll be okay; I'll make it okay. Promise."

He was babbling; no matter how much he wanted to, he was powerless to make anything okay. He couldn't stop any of it; they were falling to pieces and the world was going to burn. He threw an arm over Sam, held his shaking body tightly to his chest, kissed him on the back of the neck, closed his eyes, and willed himself to fall into a sleep of comforting, black nothingness.


	40. No Chick Flick Moments

Sam's sneering, blood-stained face mocked him from across the room at the Biggerson's restaurant. There was no Famine standing in front of him and no demons nearby, but Dean didn't need to see them to know he was in danger, because the thing standing in front of him wasn't Sammy. Then Sam laughed at him, a hard, cruel laugh that he'd never heard his brother make and Dean could feel the tears welling behind his eyes. He was dreaming. He knew it. He'd been having this same dream, or slight variations of it, since before his trip to the mental hospital. But none of that eased the gut-wrenching pain of seeing Sammy like this. If anything, it only made it worse because it was like he was seeing the preview before the big show over and over again. He turned his head, wiped a hand over his eyes, and fought back the tears.

"Sammy, are you in there? Come on Sammy, fight it."

"Precious little Sammy is gone." Sam's voice was hard, cold, and triumphant. "He's my dream lover now."

"Get out of him! Leave him alone, you son of a bitch!"

"Sorry Dean, no can do. Sam and I have special plans. It's sweet how you tried, it really is. But –" Lucifer spread Sam's arms out wide, "come on! Sammy was always as good as mine. You've seen that darkness building inside him for years. He might have been able to hide it from everyone else with that sweet smile and those sensitive, dewy eyes of his, but it was always there. And you knew it, buddy." He paused and then squinted thoughtfully. "Maybe not real well until he was getting it regular from my little demon pion, but still. You saw it. And then after the demon blood – well, there was no hope of him going back after that. Not really. Maybe he wouldn't have drank all that demon blood that last time if you'd – how can I say this delicately – met all his needs." He put a hand to the side of his face and smirked. "Impotent." He chuckled and winked. "After that, it was only a matter of time before he was going to say 'yes' to me."

Dean shook his head. "Oh, you are just so full of it and you know it. You made a demon bleed into his mouth, manipulated him I don't even know how many ways, God knows how long you've had demons watching and keeping track of him, and you sent some black-eyed skank to screw with him in every way possible –"

Lucifer's eyes grew wide in mock surprise and he gestured towards himself with both hands. "I would never!"

" – But somehow he just had that darkness inside him already. Right."

Samifer twisted his mouth into a thoughtful pout and tapped his forefinger against his face. "Hmm. And why did I do all that? My brothers chose you and Sam long ago for this destiny. You heard about how your souls fit together perfectly. You know what's in your half; what's in Sam's?" He shook his head. "You're like the poster child for lust, gluttony, and sloth. Ever wonder why Sam was never like that? So then…" he showed his teeth when he grinned, "what are Sam's sins?" He once again put his hand up to the side of his mouth as if he were about to tell a secret. "I'll give you a hint," he whispered, "it leaves the worst ones." He dropped his hand. "Demons don't make evil; they just nudge it along in the right direction."

Dean stared at Lucifer in disgust and shock. How was he able to fuck with his own head as he slept? He tightly shut his eyes and then opened them again. Wake up, he had to wake up. But every time he opened his eyes, all he saw was Sam's sneering face with the light gone out behind his eyes. And then came the gradual suspicion that maybe he wasn't dreaming after all and, even though he didn't think Lucifer would give him nearly this much time just fucking with his head unless it was with a sledgehammer, it was a still feeling he was unable to shake.

As if reading his mind, Lucifer ran a hand down the front of his white suit. "I like him. I knew him since long before he was born. I'll take care of him. And when I'm done with him, he won't even have a scratch on him. Promise. But you on the other hand…"

Lucifer began leisurely strolling towards him, a malevolent gleam in his eye. Dean backed up, but there was nowhere to run and they both knew it; no way in hell could he outrun an angel. Lucifer hadn't even gotten to him yet when he felt the first hit. It was hard, right in the ribs, and it knocked the air out of him. The next strike was on his back and the back of his head and everything went black. When he tried to move, it felt as if his limbs were wrapped in some kind of cocoon and his back itched like he was laying on cheap carpet. Did that mean nerve damage?

He opened his eyes and saw he was looking at a white ceiling with a huge, forked crack running through the center of his vision. Oh. He was lying on the motel carpet, wrapped in blankets. He twisted to the side and felt a jolt of pain on the right half of his body and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened. For the fifth time in three weeks, Sam had literally kicked him out of bed. Okay, time to sit up and ouch, ouch, oh son of a bitch, they were going to have to switch sides in bed because his right side was done for. He held his side with one hand and used the other to slowly pull the blankets off of himself and stand. Still in bed, Sam's body was still for the moment, but the rapid movement of his eyes behind the tightly closed lids, the way he scrunched his nose, and the deep frown etched into his face said he was anything but peaceful. He was going to have to wake him; it wouldn't be long until he began to scream. Dean sleepily hobbled around the bed, grabbed Sam by the shoulders, and shook him.

"Sam! Sam wake up!" Sam shook his head ever so slightly, but other than that didn't stir. "Sam! Sammy, it's Dean, you're dreaming! wake up!" A big fist shot up and punched him square on the nose. He stumbled backwards and his hand instinctively flew to his face. "Son of a bitch!"

Maybe he should have seen that hit coming. An immediate, hot sick trickle down his face and onto his hand told him he was bleeding. Awesome.

"Dean?" When he looked up, Sam was sitting up in bed with wide eyes and a partially open mouth. "What's going on?"

Still holding his hand under his bleeding nose, Dean scowled and headed for the bathroom for some toilet paper. "You were having another nightmare."

"Oh shit, I'm sorry."

Dean walked back out of the bathroom with a small wad of toilet paper shoved up his nose. "It's alright; you couldn't help it."

"Did I break it?"

"I don't know." He ran a finger over the bridge to feel if the cartilage was out of alignment. "Don't think so."

Sam nodded. "Okay – good – good."

Sam was staring in his direction, but his eyes were unfocused and large. He was seriously freaked out and Dean guessed that it wasn't because he'd just nearly broken his nose. "You alright?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah – yeah." He pulled the blankets back and jumped out of bed. "I'm going out for a walk."

Dean's mouth dropped open. "Sam, it's two in the morning!"

Sam, who was busy lacing up his shoes, made a strange, uncomfortable little laugh. "I know. But I'm wide awake now. Besides, I could use some fresh air; it's invigorating."

"It's 27 degrees outside."

Sam was already standing at the coat rack by the front door sliding his jacket on over his shoulders. "Perfect. Polar Bear Club goes out in much colder weather wearing a lot less."

"Come on, come back to bed."

"I'll be back in a few hours with breakfast."

With that, he ducked outside and shut the door behind him. Dean flopped back down on the bed, picked up his bottle of whiskey, took a large swig, and stared unseeingly at the sea foam green wallpaper.

Four hours later, Dean had polished off the rest of the whiskey, tried watching a porno, which he fell asleep in the middle of, woke up to snow on the television, flipped off the TV, closed his eyes for a while, and had finally given up on both entertainment and future sleep. It was just as well; he'd rather go without another replay of his recurring Samifer dream for the night. He laid back in bed and stared at the ceiling just as he heard approaching footsteps and the doorknob turn. Dean flipped over onto his stomach, shoved his hand under his pillow, and grabbed his gun.

"Dean?"

His hand relaxed; it was just Sam. Slowly, he turned onto his back, yawned as if he'd just woken up, and rubbed his eyes.

"Were you sleeping?"

"Not anymore. You brought breakfast?"

Sam held up an egg crate holding two coffees on one side and a white paper bag on the other. "Yeah." He laid the items on the table beside the door and then slid out of his jacket, which he threw back on the coat rack. "Sausage, egg, and cheese okay?"

Dean sat up. "Perfect."

Sam picked up the items, walked over to the bed, sat down, and handed Dean one of the coffees. Dean took it and sniffed it.

"I hope you didn't get me that triple redeye shit."

Sam smiled. "No; just regular black coffee."

"Good."

They sat together for several minutes with only the sounds of their chewing and the quiet, indistinct chatter of the guests in the neighboring room to break up the silence. As he ate, Dean kept noticing Sam repeatedly peering at him from the corner of his eye. There was something on the kid's mind. He stared intently at his sandwich.

"What?"

Sam swallowed his bite and sighed. "About last night –"

"Don't worry about it."

"I could have broken your nose."

"But you didn't."

"Not this time." He looked down at the lid of his coffee cup and took another swig. "I think…" He paused. "Maybe we should sleep in separate beds for a while. You know, just until these nightmares pass."

Dean scowled. He wanted to argue, to tell Sam that if he didn't sleep well when he was getting his ass handed to him in the middle of the night, he'd still sleep ten times worse without getting to feel his body heat and hear his quiet snuffling as he dreamed. He wanted say that waking up in the morning and then reaching over to feel Sam's hard body beside him left him with a sense of peace that he didn't think he could go without. But instead he looked away and took a half-hearted bite out of his breakfast sandwich.

"Sure, okay. Whatever you want."

.

As Dean trudged out of Bobby's house with Sam in tow behind him, he waited until he was out of eyeshot of the house and then kicked one of the junkers in the backyard. He couldn't believe Bobby had friggin' lied to them about the zombies. And, worse, it was only a matter of time before Bobby's "wife" started thinking that his face was more appetizing than the pies she was baking in his kitchen, but the man wouldn't let them do anything about it. So, now they had a new horseman to worry about and an entire town about to be attacked by zombies. Awesome. From behind him, he heard Sam heave a sigh.

"You wanna head back to the motel, grab a couple winks, then get some lunch?"

Dean headed towards the Impala. "Whatever."

"Come on Dean, think about Bobby's point of view for a second."

"His point of view? Sam, he's a hunter. I'll tell you what should be his point of view. She's a zombie. She needs to die. End of story!"

"What would you do if you were in Bobby's place?"

"Well, for starters, I wouldn't lie to us about it!"

Sam looked skeptical. "You wouldn't?"

"No!"

"What if it was me?"

Dean stopped abruptly and stared at his brother. "What?"

"What if I'd died and come back like that?" Sam stared him in the eye and pointed at the house behind them. "You think you wouldn't do exactly what he did?"

Dean's mouth dropped and he felt a flare of indignation. How could Sam even make the comparison? "What? That's totally different!"

"Why?"

"Because we're family!"

"Bobby and his wife were a family. Mom and Dad were a family."

"We're brothers! We are not like a married couple! Married couples can get divorced. We didn't pick each other like just a couple of people who meet and fall in love, decide to tie the knot, and see where it goes. We're stuck with each other, like Siamese twins. Born that way, no changing it and if you die, I die. That's just the way it goes."

Deep frown lines formed on Sam's face as he climbed inside and closed his own door. "Yeah, guess you're right."

.

After grabbing some coffee at the diner, Dean ran back to Bobby's house to do some surveillance. Of course, there was very little he could see from his only vantage point where he was sure to not get caught by Bobby, but if there were any sudden noises he'd at least hear them and be able to take action. As Dean leaned against the Impala and watched the old house with the faded blue paint and boarded up windows, however, his mind kept going back to earlier that day. Friggin' Sam. How could he even compare them to some married couple? Yeah, they were partners in everything, but it wasn't even in the same ballpark as Bobby and his wife. Sam had had Jessica; he should know the difference. Meeting the right chick and feeling that spark felt awesome. But he wouldn't die for it. He wouldn't sell his soul for it and he sure as fuck wouldn't spend eternity in Hell for it. Because, at the end of the day, while the idea of being in love was great, he didn't need it. But he needed Sam. That hole in his soul that he felt when Sam was gone…they both knew by now what that felt like. It was beyond grief. Grief he could handle – hell, he'd lost enough people in his life to know that – but losing Sam was like knowing what it was like to be dead while his heart was still beating. He may not have known a goddamned thing about the kind of love Bobby was feeling, but he knew that it wasn't like that.

He wasn't even sure if Sam had believed what he was saying or if he was just trying to get him to feel a little more compassion for Bobby. Maybe he shouldn't have blown up at Sam like he had, but he was feeling a little on edge lately; sleeping in separate beds sucked. He was okay with the fact that they'd only had sex once in the almost four weeks since Sam's demon blood detox. After all, he hadn't exactly expected Sam to walk out of that panic room and then instantly want to jump on his dick. And, truth be told, he wasn't much in the mood for sex lately, either. His sex drive had come back a little since they were away from Famine, but even then, the last time they'd had sex he'd mostly just done it to keep Sammy happy. But he missed sharing a bed. Sharing a bed meant that he heard Sam snuffle in his ear as he went to sleep and he would wake in the morning with the scent of Sam's shampoo and his clean sweat in his nostrils. And when they didn't need to get up early to work a case, he could roll over in bed while pretending to still be asleep and lay an arm over Sam's smooth chest and rest his lips on his shoulder. It was one of the few things he enjoyed anymore, outside of driving his baby or drinking himself into oblivion and even those things were losing their thrill.

Whatever was going on with Sam, he was pretty sure it didn't have everything to do with the panic room. He figured it would have some effect on him, but not like this. Whenever Sam so much as touched him, he'd get this guilty look on his face, like he was doing something he deserved the electric chair for. The whole incest thing never seemed to bother him before and Dean had a hard time believing that it would suddenly start making him feel guilty now. Not for the first time, he wondered if Sam had heard all that stuff Famine said to him. Alright, so maybe it was too much to expect for Sam to just tell him what was going on inside his custard if he knew they were both hiding stuff from each other. He was almost definitely close enough to hear it, and it was wishful thinking to believe that he could have been too whacked out on demon blood to notice what was going on. The kid was lucid. And that was another thing they weren't talking about. Dean could understand that Sam was under Famine's influence, but what would happen the next time when some temptation came Sam's way – another demon chick, or more demon blood, or whatever. Lucifer no doubt had a whole bag of tools in his arsenal to get Sam to do whatever he wanted. Dean wanted to believe that they only needed each other for everything, including saving the world, and maybe if he'd stayed with Sam instead of chasing after Famine alone then he wouldn't have drunk the demon blood, but did he need to stay with him all the time? What are Sam's sins? The question, said in his brother's voice, repeated itself inside his head. What are Sam's sins? Could he even really know what kind of shit Sam was dealing with if he was really completely opposite to him? Had Sam been pulling away lately because he really was fighting with some kind of darkness inside of him that he thought Dean wouldn't understand? What are Sam's sins? Did the whole soulmates thing really work like how Samifer had described it in his dream? If it did, could he even save him?

Dean was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't notice Mrs. Singer standing across the junkyard from him, just behind an upturned truck and watching him. He also never saw her quietly moving across the lot towards him until she was standing right beside him. It wasn't until he saw a flash of movement and yellow from out of the corner of his eye that he turned around and saw that she was close enough to take a bite out of him if she'd wanted. He jumped. Mrs. Singer turned the corners of her pale lips up into a sweet smile.

"Oops. Did I scare you?"

Dean shook his head. "No. No. No. There's…" Holy shit, Sam was right; the things they didn't talk about really could kill them. "…Nothing scary about you at all."

Mrs. Singer's eyes flashed with hurt, but her smile didn't waver. "Feel like some lunch?"

"Uh…I'm good. Thanks."

"Oh. Come, there's more pie."

Dean blinked; was she really that good of an actress, or did she honestly not understand the danger she was putting herself in by even being alone with him? His hunter instincts screamed; shoot her! Shoot her! He kept his twitching fingers away from his gun. Yeah, Bobby and his wife were definitely different from him and Sam and if he were Bobby, he'd handle the situation differently. But for months before she'd shown up Bobby had let his beard go a little wild and smelled like an old tire doused in whiskey. He wasn't about to take away the thing that was making him so happy until he knew she – it – deserved it. He looked from her to the calm house and back again.

"I don't think that Bobby wants me inside."

She cocked her brow as if he'd just said something ridiculous. "Guess it'll have to be our secret then, huh? Come on."

Dean paused. Mrs. Singer walked around the corner without so much as a glance backwards; she sure seemed pretty confident that he'd follow her inside. Well, he did need to get into the house. So, he was being invited into Bobby's house by a zombie so he could eat some pie it had baked. Weird day, even for him.

As he stood in the kitchen and took his first bite of still hot, fresh-baked cherry pie, Dean felt that he'd found a damn good reason why Bobby had married this chick in the first place. This was literally the best pie he'd had in his entire life. The semi-sweet cherries mixed with the sugary cherry sauce and left just the slightest hint of a tart bite on his tongue with the aftertaste of pure sugar. He hoped that Mrs. Singer hadn't actually eaten him in the junkyard and this was heaven. As he looked around the kitchen at the pies covering every available surface, he thought about the kind of woman Mrs. Singer must have been in life. She was definitely the little Suzy Homemaker type. While she kneaded dough for yet another pie, he tried for casual conversation about pie, but it wasn't long before the conversation turned serious. As it turned out, she did know who he was and why he was there.

"I know who you are," she said softly, turning away from her lump of dough and meeting her watery, bloodshot eyes to his. "Just like I know Bobby's not the same mild-mannered scrap dealer I married. You hunt things. I –" she faltered, "I'm a thing. I get it."

Dean got the sense that he was peering through a window into Bobby's past life, glimpsing a place that had stopped existing when he was still just a baby. Bobby was just your average, good-natured, small-town guy with a little wife who baked him pie. But Bobby hadn't yet accepted that that place didn't exist now and never could again. It was sad and it sucked, but those were just the facts. Bobby was never going to go back from being a cranky, aging, drunk paraplegic and this thing standing in front of him wasn't that same little wife. Sooner or later she was going to need to eat and would turn on him and kill him. It was only a matter of time. Nothing was ever going to work out for any of them ever again. They were all going to die bloody and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

"So then you know that Sam and I would never let anything happen to Bobby, that he's like a father to us."

"I understand. And he's lucky to have you looking out for him. But you're not the only one."

"Is that so?"

"I – I remember everything, you know. When I died. That demon taking over my body. And the things it made me do. And Bobby had no choice but to – well, you know what he did. But I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. The guilt. It weighs on him."

"So why don't you just tell him that you remember?"

Seriously, what did that have to do with protecting Bobby? That seemed like a weird thing to hide; as far as he could tell, she didn't gain anything from him not knowing what she knew and, no matter what she did or didn't remember, it didn't change facts. And if she was talking to him about it, someone she barely even knew, then it wasn't too hard for her to talk about it, either. So, what was the deal? Her returning piteous expression almost made him sorry he even asked.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you've never been in love. He's my husband. My job is to bring him peace, not pain."

Wow. He thought about that for a moment. There were things he often kept from other people, especially Sam, to avoid making waves; for example, how hurt he was when Sam had left for Stanford, or how many times he'd secretly caught Sam talking to Ruby behind his back, or how he sometimes fantasized about he and Sam settling down in some kitschy, suburban neighborhood together. But none of those secrets were meant to protect him so he didn't feel bad; it was mostly self-protection out of fear that Sam wouldn't want those things for himself, or start a fight, or not give a shit about how he felt, or maybe even laugh at him. It wasn't something Sam did, either. At least, he didn't think so. Dean looked at Mrs. Singer again and found her staring at him expectantly. He smiled.

"Well, give the lady a cigar. You're right. Never been in love. At least not like you two."

Mrs. Singer's returning smile was sympathetic and sad. "But you have been in love?"

"Well… closest I've got is Sam. He's my life."

Her smile widened and she chuckled and shook her head as if a child had just made a naïve observation. "He's your brother. That's different."

"That's what I told him."

"Oh. So, he's also never…" She paused and then turned back to her dough, picked up the lump, threw some more flour on the counter, and continued kneading. "Your job must take so much away from you."

Dean shook his head. "Sam's all I need."

"What about Sam?"

"We haven't talked about it lately."

She nodded distractedly and dragged an empty pie tin towards her. "He's all you have."

The words were quiet, as if she was talking to herself. And maybe she kinda was; the focused way she was working, she seemed to have just about forgotten about him. But there was something about what she'd said that bothered Dean. It seemed that, even though she'd agreed with him that he and Sam were different than she and Bobby, she, like Sam, had drawn a parallel between their relationships.

"Wait, what is that supposed to mean?"

Still staring at her dough, which she was neatly fitting into the pan, she shook her head. "Nothing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything."

.

Sam and Dean sat in silence beside each other on the hood of the Impala, each with a beer in hand, and stared out at the little lake in front of them. The parking lot for the little scenic park they'd found was about a hundred yards behind them but they'd kept driving until they'd reached the little picnic area sitting past the trees so they could watch the patterns the sun carved into the water. He was already into his second bottle, while Sam was still slowly sipping his first. It was funny how often they ended up in places like this to clear their heads after a hunt. Sam lowered his bottle from his lips and looked down at the mouth.

"Poor Bobby."

Dean took a big gulp of his beer and burped. "Yeah." He shook his head once. "Gotta hand it to her though, she did the right thing in the end. She wasn't lying; she really was looking out for him."

Sam's forehead creased in the center as he returned a thoughtful look. "What?"

"I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Singer back when you were still out gathering intel. She said we weren't the only ones looking out for Bobby. Guess she was right."

Sam nodded and they sat in silence for several more seconds. "So, you're saying that in the end, she loved Bobby so much that she sacrificed her life to keep him safe. And, how is that different from you and me? I mean, how many times have we died for each other now?"

"I guess in some ways it's not." He paused. "Maybe in more ways than I thought," he muttered.

"What?"

"There was something else Mrs. Singer said."

"Yeah? What did she say?"

"Nothing much, but it made me think…I mean, maybe it's a stretch, but I can see the guilt you're carrying around. You're not sleeping and I can't even touch you without you getting some look like you're supposed to be executed for it. Is there something you're keeping from me because you think you're doing it to protect me?" Sam looked down and swallowed hard. "Hey, I'm trying here. I mean, this is way out of my comfort zone. Feel like we should be sharing a tub of Ben and Jerry's and a bottle of Midol. But we're – we're partners. We're working together on this, right? So give me something."

"Not really to protect you but…" he trailed off.

"But what?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Now's probably not the best time to talk about it but I think that, when this is over, the apocalypse," he sighed, "maybe you should go back to Lisa and Ben."

Dean's jaw dropped and he blinked. "What?"

Sam shrugged but kept his eyes on the ground. "Come on, do you really want to do this your whole life? Running from shitty place to shitty place all the time and having to hide" he gestured between them, "us from everyone? Lisa and Ben are normal, and Ben's a great kid, I saw how you were with him before. I know I said before that that apple pie crap is stressful, but I think you could be cut out for it. They can give you something better –" his voice raised in an odd inflection at the end and he trailed off.

"What?" He knew he had to look like a moron with his repeated question and slack-jawed stare, but he couldn't help it; he'd expected Sam to drop something big, but nothing like this. "Sam, where is this coming from?"

"I know I'm a grade A freak –"

"We're both freaks."

"Yeah, I guess, as hunters we are but if some of the other hunters found out…" He took a deep breath. "What we do makes us freaks even to other freaks."

This seemed like a weird time for Sam to suddenly care about how other people would see their relationship. There had to be something else there, some other reason why he was saying all this stuff. But then, slowly, Dean began piecing some things together; the separate sleeping arrangements, the way Sam flinched now whenever Dean touched him, their dead sex life, the recent disappearance of Sam's chick-flick moments. It was the kind of shit that would happen if you were breaking up with someone. Then he saw Mrs. Singer's sad, patient face in her kitchen. He's all you have, she'd said. Sam wanted out, he didn't want to be a freak who slept with his brother anymore. But he also knew that he was all Dean had.

Dean's eyes widened. "Oh."

For the first time since they'd begun their conversation, Sam turned his face to him; he was wearing a deep frown and his sensitive eyes looked a little dewier than usual. "Look, we don't have to talk anymore about this right now."

Dean turned away, climbed off the hood, and opened the car door. "No need to talk about it anymore, period. I got your message loud and clear."


	41. Too Late for Love

They drove back to the motel in silence. As he drove, Dean stared ahead at the road and tightly gripped the steering wheel, while Sam stared at the floor and hunched in on himself. When they pulled into the parking lot, Dean spun the car around so the passenger's side door faced their room and then he gave Sam a hard stare. Sam hesitated and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then sighed and got out.

"Don't wait up," Dean called out as Sam slammed the door.

Sam gaped at him, but Dean pulled away and out of the parking lot before Sam could comment. They both knew what 'don't wait up' meant. Dean hadn't said that to Sam in a long time, not since he'd stopped sleeping in other people's beds. But he wasn't sleeping in Sam's bed anymore and Sam, it seemed, thought it best if they went back to just being brothers. Dean snorted and shook his head at the thought. Yeah, just brothers, like that was really possible. Well, they could pretend. They'd done it before, so they could do it again.

So, what was he supposed to do now? Bang Sam out of his system? That was basically what he'd told Sam he was going out to do. But that wasn't what he'd meant when he'd said it; he just needed to get away and be alone for a while. But then Sam had given him that look and Dean had decided he'd let it slide. Because he didn't feel like explaining himself and, anyway, if Sam didn't want this thing between them anymore then Dean was free to have sex with whoever he wanted without justifying it to Sam. Except that he didn't really want to have sex with anyone, or at least, not yet; the thought of being with anyone other than Sam felt kind of empty and pointless. But, well, when he thought about his options, what else could he do? He wasn't going to just sit around and ask Sam to reconsider, not when Sam so obviously didn't want to be involved anymore in this…whatever it was they had. Not when Sam didn't want to be a 'freak' anymore.

Freak. Dean mulled the word over in his head. He didn't see anything wrong with the label. They'd always been freaks; it just meant that they were different. And who wanted to be exactly like everyone else, anyway? Well, okay, he had to admit that he wouldn't mind being a little more domesticated, but even that fantasy of his wasn't like most other people's, because it involved playing house with his brother. But that was more than okay with him. Screw other people. And as far as he and Sam went, well, if other hunters found out about them and wanted to call him names or beat their asses because of their opinions of what he and Sam did in their spare time, then let 'em try. But Sam didn't see it that way. Sam had been fighting that title of 'freak' his whole life. Maybe Dean should have seen this coming sooner. Maybe that first time when Sam had started rutting against him in the Impala and begging for it, Dean should have shoved him off of him and taken them both back to the motel. Then none of this would've happened and Sam wouldn't be regretting it now. Dean didn't feel ashamed of what they'd done and he sure as hell didn't regret it, but if he could he'd still go back in time and take it all back, for Sam, because he obviously did.

Dean went to a bar near the center of town called The House of Ale Repute. Dean liked that place; they played up the building's old design, which used to have a brothel upstairs, and the waitresses wore little costumes like the 19th century fancy girls. The only problem with going to a bar in the town of Sioux Falls was that Dean wanted to sit and drink alone and, after saving half the town from being eaten by the other half, that wasn't going to happen. About a minute after he sat down at the bar, a waitress's eyes lit up on him in recognition.

"Hey, aren't you the guy with all that know-how about zombies?"

"Yeah, that's me."

She glanced around the room. "Bobby here, and your partner, you know, the tall one?"

"No."

She pushed her bottom lip out into a pout. "Oh, too bad." She grinned again. "I'm Tamara."

"Dean."

"I know. Everyone knows you guys after last night. Has the bartender already taken care of you?"

"No, but – "

"Hey!" Dean felt a hard clap on the back and then saw a flash of silvery-colored hair and got a strong whiff of bourbon as a man stumbled into him. The man leaned forward and glowered at him and that was when Dean saw his red nose and deep-set wrinkles. "It's you," the man angrily slurred.

"Yeah, it's me."

The waitress put an arm around the man's waist and grabbed the hand still resting on Dean's shoulder. "Hey now, Mr. Weissman, is that any way to talk to the other patrons?"

She began leading him towards a nearby table, and the man came along with her willingly, but not before craning his neck back towards Dean and crying out, "to the guy who shot my wife!"

Dean put his elbow on the counter and rested his forehead against the palm of his hand. Fuck; he should have thought about this before he went out. This was why he and Sam always blew town right after a hunt; normally, he and Sam would be throwing the last of their things into the Impala right now.

"What can I get ya?"

Dean looked up to see a bored, heavyset man in his mid-thirties with a scraggly beard staring at him expectantly.

"Uh…" He stood up. "Actually, I think I'm gonna go – "

"Hey, Harvey!" The waitress was holding up the bottom of her skirt and running towards them. "You're not leaving, are you?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she turned to the bartender and said, "Harvey, whatever he wants, put it on my tab." She turned to him. "What d'ya want?"

Dean gestured with his thumb towards the door. "I was actually just leaving."

"Oh, no!" She gestured towards the old man, "Don't let old Mr. Weissman bother you; he's just a little drunk." She sat down on the stool next to him. "Come on, just stay for one drink."

Dean turned towards the now annoyed looking bartender. "I'll take a shot of whiskey. Just give me whatever's cheapest."

The bartender walked away without another word. Dean nodded towards him. "Charming guy. He your boyfriend?"

She giggled. "Recently ex-boyfriend, actually. Is it that obvious?"

"Well, let's just say he didn't look too happy to see me talking to you."

"Don't worry about him."

"I'm not."

"Yeah, I guess a guy like you wouldn't be. You and your partner, you guys are pretty good. Even Bobby; I didn't know he could move around so well in that chair." She paused and waited for him to reply, but he didn't. "What d'ya think they'll put about this in the papers?"

"Um," Dean shook his head. "Probably nothing."

He really wished his drink would just get there already so he could take it and leave. This chick was kind of cute and she definitely seemed to be hitting on him hard enough, but Dean had no interest in whatever she had to offer. Despite what he'd told Sam, he wasn't going anywhere, not with this chick or any other, probably for a while. Because he'd had what he wanted and, yeah, it wasn't always perfect, but it was the only thing that had ever really felt right to him in his entire life. Being with anyone besides Sam was always going to be second best.

"So…" She eyed him up. "You been doing this a long time?"

"Since I was a kid."

The bartender roughly set the drink down in front of him. Dean shot him a cocky smile. The bartender scowled at him and walked away.

"Your partner been doing that kind of stuff since he was a kid, too?"

"Yeah."

"And how do you guys know each other again?"

"We're, uh…" he took his shot. "We're brothers."

Her smile brightened. "Oh, really? Sam? Is that his name?"

"Yeah."

"So… do you know if he's single?"

Dean pointed forcefully at her. "Hey! Back off!"

He hadn't meant to bark at her like that; it had just come out like a knee-jerk reaction. But the waitress shrank back in her chair and a couple of the patrons sitting close by began to stare. Dean's jaw dropped and he shook his head.

"I'm – I'm sorry, I didn't mean to – I'm sorry."

He stood up, pulled six dollars out of his wallet, laid it on the counter, and walked out the door.

.

Meanwhile, Sam paced back and forth in the motel room. How did the day go so wrong so quickly? He hadn't meant to…was it still called 'breaking up' when he still spent every night in a motel room with the guy? Well, whatever it was, he hadn't meant to do it. And then, once he realized what he'd done, he'd decided to let it go because, maybe, it was for the best. Hallucination or not, what Dean had said to him back there in the panic room was right: _my dreams are all taking a backseat. Again. Because of your sorry ass._ Dean would never leave him, not as long as he thought Sam needed him and wanted him to stay. And that meant that he would never have the family he always wanted, the kind that he could have with Lisa and Ben. Sam had heard all of Dean's leading remarks: _you ever think about it? Wife, kids, the whole nine?_ Whatever Sam could try to be for him, it would never be a wife, and he certainly couldn't ever give him children. As long as he stayed with Sam, Dean's life was going to be checking in and out of fleabag motels, going on endless hunts, and having stolen moments of covert sex. And Dean deserved more than that.

But when Sam thought about Dean being with Lisa because it was what Dean ultimately wanted, that was totally different than Dean going off to screw some random barfly. Sam kept picturing Dean in different places – a bar bathroom, a motel, a studio apartment, the backseat of the Impala – in various positions, fucking any number of slutty women. Would Dean really do that, so soon afterwards, when Sam still had hickeys on his body from the last time they were together? Thinking about what Dean might be doing at that very moment made him so jealous that he actually felt crazed. He knew Dean probably went to the House of Ale Repute; he liked to go there at least once whenever they were in town. Sam imagined himself showing up at the bar in a stolen car, marching in, and interrupting Dean's make-out session with some blonde by grabbing him by the collar and kissing him hard in front of everyone. Even the ones who knew they were brothers. He didn't care about them or what they thought. Just as long as everyone knew Dean belonged to _him_. But he couldn't do that, he couldn't just stomp in there like some jealous boyfriend. He wanted Dean to move on, he wanted his brother to be happy. Sam wasn't going to be Dean's burden who he had to _fuck_ – Sam still cringed at the sound of Dean's voice when he'd said that in the panic room – for the rest of his life to keep him in line.

But he still couldn't help the bubbling rage at thinking about Dean with someone else at that moment. What was he doing with her? Was he thinking of him as he did it? Was –

Dean walked through the door balancing a case of beer in one arm and a large paper bag in the other.

"Help me with these, will ya?"

Sam grabbed the paper bag and looked inside; it was filled with bottles of various liquors. "Jesus Dean, did you buy the whole store?"

"Shuddup. Just put those in the fridge. I already started on the case and I plan to finish it by the end of the night."

"So, uh…" Sam tried to keep his face from twitching into a smile. "No luck at the bar?"

Dean scowled at him as he put the case down beside own bed and then sat down and cracked open a can. He took a long pull from it, put his feet up on the bed, and said nothing. Sam put the liquor away and then looked over at his brother. Dean had flipped on the TV and his eyes were locked on it like it was the most riveting thing he'd ever seen. It was playing a commercial advertising cheap siding. Sam looked down to the open case beside Dean's bed. He didn't really want a beer, nor did he like the brand Dean had bought. He crossed the room and bent down to grab a can, leaning forward a bit further than he needed to. Dean stared ahead and pretended that he didn't notice their proximity. Sam grabbed two beers, then flopped down on his own bed and downed the first with a few big gulps.

.

Dean awoke the next morning with his head pounding slightly. He lazily swept an arm over the empty side of the bed and felt alarmed when it was empty. Oh, wait; it was supposed to be empty. He looked forward to the day when he'd stop forgetting that. But then he heard someone wearing heavy boots step lightly on the carpet. It wasn't Sam; he was never that quiet when they were alone. He reached under his pillow and felt for his gun.

"Looking for this?"

Dean turned around to see a man in a full ski mask holding a shotgun in one hand and his .38 in the other. The clip fell from the gun and clattered to the floor. Dean turned around to look at Sam. A second masked man stood in front of him with a shotgun aimed at Sam's head. Sam looked like he was about to cry, but other than that was okay. Thank God, or… well, whatever. Dean went for a nonchalant, 'Morning,' but his heart thumped in his throat. These guys weren't run-of-the-mill thieves; if they were, they wouldn't know he and Sam were armed, or be able to actually steal his own gun from under his pillow as he slept. And all it took was a few words out of one of them to confirm that Dean was right; he identified the voice of the one in front of him as Roy, which made the other one Walt.

Roy and Walt glanced at each other, clearly nervous from having been made, and Sam stared up at Walt in astonishment, mirroring exactly how Dean felt. Roy and Walt were old friends. Dean had gone on half a dozen hunts with them, both with and without their dad, while Sam was away at Stanford and, when Sam had come back, the four of them had met a couple of times at the Roadhouse and had a few beers. He and Sam had really liked them. Well, until now.

Walt lifted his mask up over his face. "Don't matter."

Roy hesitated and then lifted his mask, too. A wave of fear washed over Dean; if it "didn't matter," it meant they weren't planning to leave witnesses. Dean shrugged at them nonchalantly and smirked. "Well, is it just me, or do you two seem a tad upset?"

Roy was nervously hopping in place, but Walt didn't even acknowledge him. He just stared at Sam, gun leveled at his chest. "You think you can flip the switch on the Apocalypse and just walk away, Sam?"

Oh no. Dean's face fell as the full implications fell into place. Roy and Walt weren't holding a grudge; they were on a hunt. And Sam was the target.

Sam's eyes widened. "Who told you that?"

"We ain't the only hunters after you. And the apocalypse ain't the only reason for some of 'em." Walt pumped his gun. "See you in the next life."

"Hear me out. I can explain, okay? Please."

Dean reeled; they were being hunted because of the apocalypse, and something else? Could it be… Sam's words from just yesterday echoed in his mind: if some of the other hunters found out…what we do makes us freaks even to other freaks. No, it made no sense; hating them for it, or even wanting to kick their asses was one thing, but wanting to kill them for it seemed a tad excessive. But, whatever the second reason was, Sam was sitting there giving Roy that puppy-dog look and Walt was hesitating. Dean clenched his jaw and stared. Walt was pretty cold-blooded on the job, but he'd never gone up against Sam and that damn look before. For a moment, Dean thought that maybe Walt was going to put the gun down, maybe Sam could explain and they could walk away –

The gunshot rang in Dean's ears and Sam was blown backwards on the bed. Blood quickly soaked through his shirt. Dean jumped to run to Sam, but Roy's gun followed him.

"Stay the hell down," he commanded.

Dean stayed, but it took every ounce of self-restraint. Sam was dying in front on him, without him. Dean needed to save him, or at least be with him. He needed to hold Sam so he wouldn't die alone. From somewhere that sounded far away, he heard Walt tell Roy to shoot him. Sam's eyes were closed and he wasn't moving. _That's right Roy,_ Dean thought, _shoot me. Don't make me live without Sam. Don't make me be alone._

But Roy was being a chicken shit. "Killin' Sam was right but Dean…"

"He made us and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot! And you heard all the talk; who knows what Sam did to him to get him to fuck him. Probably twisted him so bad, wouldn't be surprised if he'd turned him into a demon like him, or worse. Shoot him."

"But we didn't kill Sam 'cause of that, and we don't know –"

"You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester's on your ass, 'cause I don't. Shoot him."

Dean turned away from Sam's body and faced Roy. "Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I'm gonna warn you, when I come back I'm gonna be pissed." Roy just stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. Dean couldn't blame him; if he was Roy, he'd be scared of him, too. Because, he didn't care if he even had to claw his way back out of Hell; Roy and Walt were going to pay for this. "C'mon!" Roy jumped as he shouted. "Let's get this show on the road."

Dean wasn't that shocked then, when Walt pushed Roy out of the way and shot him in the chest.


	42. Forever As One

Sam still couldn't believe he'd made it to Heaven, somehow, after everything he did. And, after taking a stroll with Dean through "favorite" memories, he almost wished he hadn't made the cut to come here. All the same, as Sam sat next to Ash talking about the science behind Heaven, he was happy to see him again, and surprised, too. Not that Ash was a bad guy; he'd just never expected to bump into him in Heaven, let alone rescued by him as they ran from Zachariah.

He watched the wavelengths on Ash's computer screen with fascination. Ash had muted the angels blabbing in Enochian, but Sam still watched the squiggles move and multiply. There were thousands of angels having hundreds of conversations, and Ash was tapped into every single one of him. The things he must have learned from this alone…

So, this was how Ash had known to save their asses from Zachariah: the angel's love of his own voice had done him in. And, somehow, Ash was able to apply his knowledge of physics to figure out how to get into any heaven he wanted. It really was a shame Ash was dead; if they still had him around fighting on their side, he'd be so helpful that he'd be dangerous. Of course, in Sam's experience having someone helpful around almost always meant that in the next minute they were going to die bloody; that was how Ash had gotten up here to begin with.

Dean had lost interest in Ash's research even before he began explaining it; he was sitting several feet away at a table with Pamela. Sam felt his body thrum with jealousy as he thought about how Pamela had invited one or the both of them into her bed every time she'd seen them. He tried to shove the feeling down. Pamela was an old friend. Besides, it wasn't his business anymore what Dean did, or with whom. Sam needed to leave it alone, even if it hurt to think that the other side of Dean's bed could be warmed so quickly by someone else.

Ash keyed a few strokes and the screen Sam had been watching disappeared and was then replaced with a single green line. Ash pointed at it and Sam smiled at him encouragingly to continue. Hearing about the science behind Heaven was at least momentarily distracting.

"So," Ash scrunched up his face in concentration and spread his hands over the keyboard in front of him. "Think of this as Heaven. Except, this is just the angels' Heaven."

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Angel Heaven?"

"Admin building. Almost think of it as a lobby. But…" He hit a key and the single line unfolded into thousands of little lines, each with their own color. The lines then wrapped around themselves, almost like a multi-colored rope. "It's just one layer. Heaven, Sam. Each one of these places is like its own little universe, but they all have a door. At least one. Each of these universes is uniquely different to the energy emitted by each person's Heaven." He pointed to a particularly strong wavelength. "See, this one is Mallanāga Vātsyāyana's."

Sam's cheeks felt a little hot at the mention of that name. He embarrassedly scratched the back of his head. "Right, the…ah, Kama Sutra guy."

"Exactly. See the way that line's jumping? That only happens in high energy Heavens. When I saw that, I thought, 'hey, I gotta figure out what's going on there.'" He shook his head. "I still don't know."

"So this is how you get around up here?"

"Hm, more or less. It's awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory."

"So, how many gardens are there?" Sam asked.

"Well, one. But also about a hundred billion." Ash began feverishly typing on his keyboard, bouncing through different strings. "All roads lead to the same place."

"So let's find the specific energy pattern emitted from the garden and we should be able to just hack right into it without having to follow a road!"

"Already on it, my friend."

Sam pointed to a layer that was two strings so tightly and intricately wrapped around each other they looked like they were tied in a knot in the middle. It was the only one like it on the screen. "What's that?"

Ash stopped typing. "Oh, that?" He hit a couple of keys and the line enlarged itself on the screen. "That's yours and Dean's. Not a whole lot of ones like that out here, so when I heard you boys were up here and your Heaven was fully active for a change, made you real easy to spot."

"Yeah," Sam muttered in a low voice as he nodded at the countertop. "Good. So that's the, uh…" Sam's ears felt like they were beginning to blush. "That's what the shared Heaven wavelength looks like?"

"Uh…" Ash paused to hit a few keys, which shrunk the lines back to normal size and then booted it off the screen as he began to once again bounce through Heavens. "Yeah."

"And you already knew me and Dean would share our Heavens?"

"Well, yeah."

"How?"

He pointed at Sam. "First time you were up here, I couldn't have really been dead longer than a few hours in your time down there on earth, but up here? I'd already been here for about a month. Already figured out most of the ins and outs of how this place worked. So I was tuning in to angel radio, learning Enochian, and was surprised to hear them talking about you. They don't usually talk about humans, or at least didn't before this whole apocalypse business. But anyway, I was eavesdropping on a conversation and overheard a couple of 'em were having about how you were up here, thought I'd pop in and say 'hi.' Problem was, it took me a little while to figure out how to get to you because your Heaven was weirdly lopsided. Turns out, half of it was empty."

Sam skirted his eyes over to Dean, who was grinning predatorily at Pamela, and then stared down at the countertop. "And you knew the other half would belong to Dean?"

Ash bunched his eyebrows together and studied Sam as if he was carefully choosing his words. Behind them, Sam saw a flash of movement. Pamela had hit Dean upside the head. Dean stared back at her, guilty and hurt. Sam watched them out of the corner of his eye. Didn't look like their reunion was going so well.

"That's for getting me killed," she said.

"Yeah…" Dean looked down and Sam looked away. He couldn't stand the guilty look on Dean's face. They hadn't pulled the trigger. Pamela had known the danger going in. It sucked every time someone they knew died while fighting beside them, but she had no right to blame Dean. "That's…probably less than I deserve. Makes you feel any better, we got Ash killed, too."

Ash threw up his hand in a rock salute. "I'm cool with it," he shouted and then snapped his fingers.

"He's cool with it," Dean rejoined.

Sam tuned out of Dean and Pamela's conversation. If he heard much more, he was pretty sure it was going to make him angry. He and Ash continued to look through strings. Ash was quiet and Sam figured Ash had said all he'd wanted to about his and Dean's heaven. Sam tried just watching the screen, trying to follow along with what Ash was doing, but then Ash stopped pounding the keyboard and turned his head toward him.

"Look, Sam," he said in a very low, quiet voice, "whatever's going on with you and Dean, that shit must feel weird between you guys, being brothers and all. But soulmates…did y'all know before this that you were soulmates?"

Sam cricked his neck to the side. "Yeah."

"Well, it's cosmic. I mean it's bigger than, well, possibly even the angels. I studied your wavelengths; rare things make me curious. I don't think anyone can untangle 'em without destroying 'em. You two are meant to be tangled up together; I've never seen a bonded form of energy so intense. And you two got a shared plot somewhere in that tangled mess."

"Shared plot?"

"The endpoint. Your Heaven. When you come to the end of your individual memories in each of your heads and finally get to the point you're supposed to stay. I don't know what it is, but it's the main sticking point between your strings."

Sam thought back to Dean's earlier gripe when they'd first gotten to Heaven: _where's the triplets and the latex? C'mon, a guy has needs._ But, it seemed, Dean's Heaven was being alone with him. Forever.

"Hm." Sam cleared his throat. "In your experience, is everyone…happy in their Heaven?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"You're sure?"

"Well, everyone I met so far seems pretty happy. Heaven is the one thing, whatever it is, that made every person happiest in life."

Sam looked around. "And for you, that was the Roadhouse?"

"Hell yes! Got to sleep all day, party all night. Had my own private man cave. It was a pretty sweet deal, man, all around."

Sam gave Ash a lopsided smile and resumed quietly watching him scroll through wavelengths. The one thing that made them the happiest in life, huh. So, for Dean, that was always family, and being with him. No triplets. No spandex. Not the Doublemint Twins he talked about for a week after he'd hooked up with them. Not even Lisa and Ben. There was someplace along their road where they would both be contented and happy to stay, just the two of them, forever. Sam was at a total loss; this was completely contrary to what Dean talked about, what he wanted. Two short years ago, he'd been inside Dean's head and had walked in on that dream where Lisa was sitting on a picnic blanket, holding a bottle of wine and asking Dean to join her before they had to pick Ben up from baseball. And, even recently, Dean had been slipping talk of settled down family into their conversations for months: _You ever think about it – wife, kids, the whole nine? Maybe we don't know what we're missing._ So, that was Dean's ultimate fantasy, wasn't it? Lisa, Ben, a normal life, where they could cook each other eggs in the morning and go on family picnics in the early afternoon. A life where the only weapon Dean ever needed to use was a long, pronged fork for stabbing steaks he grilled in the backyard, or maybe a can of insect repellant for a bees' nest in the garage.

It wasn't a weak or stupid dream. Even Sam saw the draw of that kind of life. It sounded idyllic, kind of like what he'd expected from life with Jessica once they were married. Except that whenever he fantasized about that with Jessica, it had always looked unreal, like overly saturated colors in an old Technicolor movie; it was too bright, too contrived, too forced. Later, he figured it was just because he was never meant to have that kind of life. The closest he'd ever come to it was whenever their dad rented him and Dean a motel room with a kitchenette while he was off hunting. Of course, they'd had a maid sometimes checking in on them and their dad came back every once in a while to give them money and make sure they were still alive, but for weeks at a time he and Dean always had their own unspoken rhythm: in the morning, Sam made them toast, or sometimes pancakes while Dean cooked eggs, sometimes with a side of bacon or sausage. After school, Sam did homework while Dean watched TV or went grocery shopping for their dinner. They ate dinner together and watched movies until they fell asleep. Sometimes that rhythm was interrupted by Dean going out all night on one of his self-destructive benders, or by Dean dropping him off somewhere for several hours so he could bring a girl back to their motel room. But Sam had appreciated the security of their regular schedule; it had felt safe and nice. And sometimes, as he'd fallen asleep against Dean in the middle of some crappy movie, Sam would fantasize that every day of their lives could be like this: just him and Dean and no moving around, combat training, impromptu medical training with homemade stitches and tourniquets, or dying young. He loved being able to retreat into that fantasy when he was alone with Dean. Looking back, those times were the best in his life: it existed in a time before their relationship that been rifted by Stanford, Ruby, and the apocalypse, back when most people they knew were still around, but just away for a while as he and Dean got to spend some peaceful time alone. Yeah, that was the moment he'd like to stay in forever.

Wait a minute, could Dean… Sam had always assumed Lisa would be the star of Dean's normal life fantasy. But if he and Dean shared their endpoint, then they would have to want the same thing. _Heaven is the one thing that made each person happiest in life._ Sam knew his endpoint. And Dean's was the same. Sam's stomach fluttered and his chest suddenly felt very light. He finally understood. Sam hadn't thought Dean would want to stick with him for any longer than he had to; he'd started the apocalypse and, if that didn't make someone unworthy of love, then he wasn't sure what did. But Dean still loved him and wanted Sam to stick by him. Up until now, Sam thought it was because of a combination of familial obligation and worry over that if Sam left then he'd go to the Devil, but now he knew that Dean's heaven…He didn't just need Sam by his side; he wanted him there, forever. And yet, Dean had so readily accepted when Sam had tried pushing him off on Lisa. But a life with Lisa wasn't the thing Dean wanted most. Did Dean think Sam was just getting rid of him? They'd always wanted the same thing: for the other to be safe and happy, together. But they'd each just been so busy blaming themselves for the other's unhappiness, caught up in his own feelings of low self-worth, and being so stubborn that they hadn't seen it before. How many times had Dean said that they kept making the same mistakes over and over again? And yet, they still were. And the worst part about it was that all of it – the lies, the avoiding, the mistakes, the unnecessary sacrifices and the pain all of it brought – came from love. That old saying "hindsight is 20/20," – Sam had never realized how true that was until now. Looking back, it had been so obvious; all those missed signals, all that wasted time when they were alive.

"Oh shit, Sam; check this out."

Sam looked at the screen. Instead of a wavelength, it was a single ball of light. Ash didn't need to explain to tell him what it was. He grinned.

"Hey!" he turned to Dean and Pamela, "Found a shortcut to the Garden."

Ash turned around and gave everyone a thumbs up, which Pamela returned.

"Oh yeah!" Ash jumped off his barstool. "I'll get started on the sigil so we can get you where ya need to go!"

Pamela turned back to Dean and gave him that familiar grin Sam had seen so often, the one that said she'd like to drag Dean back to her heaven for a little alone time before the two of them had to leave for the Garden.

Ash had run to his room but, sure enough, as if on cue, Pamela called out to him, "Hey! You think before you send these boys on their merry way, I can show Dean my heaven?"

She winked at Dean. Dean chuckled uneasily and gave her a half smile. Sam felt as if he was going to be sick. Ash came out of his room twirling a new piece of chalk.

"Sorry Pammy, no can do. Too much of a risk with those angel boys watching so many gates."

"Aw." She shrugged at Dean. "Maybe next time."

Dean nodded. "Yeah. Raincheck."

Dean gave Sam the briefest of glances and Sam wasn't sure what he was seeing on Dean's face. Pensiveness maybe? Or guilt? Sam twitched his face into the closest thing to a smile he was able to manage and turned away, back to Ash's computer. Ash stepped up beside Sam, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry," he said in a low voice, "I got your back."

Sam gave him a half nod, but Ash was already kneeling in front of the back door and drawing a circle with his chalk. To Sam's right, Dean was still grinning flirtatiously at Pamela, although Sam could tell from the way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes that he wasn't really much into it. Pamela, however, didn't seem to notice; she had her hands in her back pockets, pushing out her chest and leaning towards him ever so slightly. Sam had no real issue with Pamela; she wanted Dean, but who didn't? The only problem was though, that Dean wasn't hers to have. He belonged to Sam, just as fully as Sam belonged to him. And this whole time they'd just been too stupid and thick-headed to see it

Dean had just learned that they shared their heaven, but he hadn't figured out yet that it was because they wanted to be together, both of them, and their want for each other wasn't completely one-sided. Of course, he didn't know about Heaven having an endpoint, either. All he'd seen were Sam's memories of getting away from him and Dad. That night he'd left him and Dad for Stanford wasn't a happy memory now and hadn't been in years. And, after what Gabriel had said about how his rebelliousness had made him like Lucifer, it was even one of the few things in his life he wished he could take back. But it had felt good at the time, and he guessed that was what Heaven was basing this stuff on; the emotional high when it was happening, which for most people made it a lasting, good memory. He was still proud of himself for standing up to Dad, but he'd been selfish and cruel when he left. He'd said some unforgivable things to Dad and had walked out without so much as a 'goodbye' to Dean. And still, at one time it had literally been the best night of his life. He'd left Dean feeling abandoned and had never even given it a thought. He'd spent so much of his life being so wrong, and he'd never once stopped to think about how what he did affected Dean.

But if they'd been able to stay in his head for a little longer, Dean would have seen that Sam had happier memories to choose from, like the first night he and Dean had…well…okay maybe those kinds of memories weren't allowed in Heaven. But there were so many others: the night he and Dean caught fireflies in a jar and tried to use them as a lantern when he was 6; his winning kick that won him the division soccer championship when he was 12; the moment Dean realized after he'd painted his face for a Jayhawks game that Sam had switched the paint with stuff that wouldn't come off when he was 23.

In front of the door, Ash was finishing up a complicated sigil design. Sam needed to get Dean alone to talk to him before they left. Dean needed to understand. But then Ash called over his shoulder, "Almost done!" and Dean was talking towards the doorway. Sam grabbed his sleeve on the way.

"Dean, we need to talk."

Dean scowled at him. "Not now. After what I just saw…not for a while, Sam."

Sam let his hand drop. Dean walked over to the door and then Pamela was coming over to him to hug him goodbye.


	43. Wasting My Hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and all the comments and kudos. It means a lot to me!

Dean and Sam hadn't even made an attempt at cleaning the room or hiding the evidence of their own murders before heading out; after all, nothing was going to fix the buckshot in the headboards and back wall, or the completely blood soaked sheets and mattresses they were leaving behind. Instead, they cleaned themselves up, changed their clothes, and headed out leaving their bullet-ridden shirts beside the motel bath towels saturated in blood. Dean wondered what detectives would do when DNA tests of the eight or so liters of blood they'd left behind found that the already dead Sam and Dean Winchester had just been shot in their beds. The missing weight from around his neck still made him feel naked, but he was going to have to get used to that from now on. That amulet was in the trash, where it belonged. It hadn't helped Cas find God and it sure as hell wasn't doing any favors for him now that he knew how little he actually meant to Sam. It was supposed to be he and Sam against the world, like it was the Christmas when Sam had first given him the amulet. He had been homesick for their dad to come home so they could be together as a family on the one day a year families were supposed to be together no matter what. But after Sam had given him that necklace, the only thing he had to offer as a gift to anyone, Dean hadn't even missed their Dad when he hadn't come in for Christmas because he and Sam were their own family. But now…well, now Sam was always talking about sticking together and spouting shit about how he'd do anything for him, but, even if Sam believed it right then, it was all a lie. The amulet was no longer a sign of their closeness, only of how stupid Dean was to think they could mean as much to each other as he thought they did.

They had to blow town before the maid made her gruesome discovery and called the cops, but they had one matter of business to attend to beforehand: hunting down Roy and Walt. As soon as they and their things were in the car, Dean threw the car into reverse out of their parking space and said, "Alright, so we're going to head west on I-90 and not stop until we hit friggin' Washington. Right after we find those dickbags."

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "We're going to hunt Roy and Walt?"

Sam's voice was sarcastic and his face was full of disbelief, as if it was an unreasonable thing to kick the asses of the two guys who just literally killed them less than an hour ago. Dean clenched his jaw and threw the car in park.

"Are you kidding? Yes, Sam, they shot you in front of me, not to mentioned iced me. Okay? If that doesn't warrant at least a serious beat down, nothing does."

Sam sighed. "Yeah, I know, but still..."

Still? What the hell was he talking about? It was already well-known amongst other hunters that no one hurt his little brother without expecting to at least get the shit beat out of them for it. Letting two guys put a hole through Sam's chest and then walk away felt like he'd be setting a dangerous new precedent.

"You got a better idea? As if we're not already ass deep in the apocalypse, we've got hunters on our ass, too. Got to send a message we're not going to take being killed lying down – er, well, you know."

"They already think we're dead. Look, let's just lay low for a while, alright? No one will find us, and we'll get this mess sorted out."

"Oh you mean the friggin' apocalypse! Sure, we'll just get that sorted out and evade hunters at the same time! Should be easy. I mean, it's not like we're likely to run into any while working a job or anything."

"Don't you think seeing us alive and kicking would be enough? Besides..." Sam looked down and scrubbed a hand over his face, then went silent for over a minute.

"Besides what? Sam?"

Sam sighed and stared ahead silently at the road for several seconds longer, looking as if he was carefully choosing his words."Just – they had good reason."

Dean couldn't believe the words coming out of Sam's mouth. "Good reason?"

Sam shrugged. "Half the time, you would've hunted me, too."

Dean glared at Sam. "Screw you, Sam."

Sam swallowed hard. "I'm just saying; you gotta see their side at of things a little bit."

Yeah, Dean remembered saying that to Sam a year ago when he'd started chugging demon blood and going dark side. And, yes, okay, if he was any other hunter, he might be hunting Sam down, too; letting Lucifer out of his cage was a good enough reason to want to hunt anything. And, besides that, some hunters had even more reason to hunt them down than even that. How any of them found out he and Sam were sleeping together was anyone's guess, but if they knew about that he was willing to bet they probably knew about Sam's demon blood addiction, too; Tim and Reggie had tried force feeding that shit to Sam back in Oklahoma several months back, and he could bet they were talking to other hunters about it and probably hunting them down, too. And part of him wondered if he was even wrong to stop them. Because he had thought he could keep Sam with him, keep him safe, keep him from saying 'yes' to Lucifer and burning the whole damn world to the ground, by his saying 'yes' to the added intimacy in their relationship that Sam had claimed to want so badly. He'd had his doubts about whether or not Sam really understood the gravity of what he was committing to, knew that once this thing started up between them that he couldn't survive it if Sam walked away again, and knew that Sam's track record involved walking away from him every time, but God help him, he'd just grabbed the bull by both horns and committed to this thing wholeheartedly. And even still Sam had drank more demon blood and recently announced his intentions to walk away by telling him to go off with Lisa and Ben. And now after seeing Sam's greatest hits in Heaven, where all of his happiest memories were spent with everyone but him, Dean had realized that one thing was just inevitable no matter what he did, no matter how hard he committed himself: in the end, Sam loved getting away from him. And fuck Roy and Walt for sending them to Heaven in the first place and making him watch it. It didn't matter what they knew about Sam, or if they thought they were doing their jobs, or whatever other twisted reasons they had. Because this was Sam they were talking about and not just Sam but also Heaven, and the angels, and everything else that they just complicated to hell. And not them, not anyone was fucking doing that to them again.

"Sam, I hear what you're saying, but I don't care."

"You don't care?" Sam sounded incredulous but there was a weird hopeful note in this voice.

"No. We've got enough on our plate as it is. We find Roy and Walt and I'm giving them the biggest beat down of their sorry lives. End of story."

Sam sighed loudly in exasperation, but nodded and then let his head fall back on the seat and said nothing. That was surprising; it hadn't looked like Sam was going to back down from this one. Well, if this was his way of sucking up after what Dean had just seen in Heaven, it wasn't going to cut it. Still, Dean was grateful for the lack of push-back because he wasn't backing down, either. They fucking shot Sam in front of him and if anything was going to make him feel better after what he'd just been through, knocking the cocky smirks off their faces was it. Dean pulled out of the parking lot, looking to start his search at the nearest bar.

Finding Roy and Walt had been surprisingly easy; after having filled them both with buckshot and watching them both bleed out in their beds, Roy and Walt weren't exactly worried about covering their tracks. They found them at the third dive they checked, a little hole-in-the-wall place right outside of town. They scoped out the area first, Dean checking the front door and kitchen exit and Sam checking the back. The place was full of a dozen or so patrons and waitstaff, so they agreed to stay out of sight and hidden in the wooded area at the edge of the parking lot near Roy and Walt's truck; staying away from the locals, cops, and the papers wasn't optional.

One hour rolled over into two in the empty lot, with just a couple of patrons leaving to unsteadily walk to their cars and drive off. At hour three, there were only a few cars left in the parking lot, and then Dean got a call on his cell.

"Bobby?"

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Bobby, who else?"

"Sam with you?"

"Yeah, he's right here."

"Put me on speakerphone, would ya?"

Sam shot Dean a questioning look and Dean returned a shrug, turned the phone's volume down, and put it on speaker, then held it up between them so they could move in close together to hear.

"Okay, Bobby, you're on," Dean said.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, Bobby, it's us," Sam chimed in. "Who did you expect?"

"I have no idea, seeing as word's out both of you are dead."

"What?" they asked in unison.

"I just got three condolence calls in as many hours. Walt's calling everyone he knows bragging he shot you."

Dean scowled and rolled his eyes. "Oh, son of a -"

"I ought to string up you two idjits for making me worry like that. Next time you fake your own deaths, a little heads up would be nice."

"We didn't fake our own deaths," Sam insisted.

"Look, it's a long story," Dean said, "Can't talk now, but we'll call you as soon as we can."

With that he shut the phone off and angrily shoved it into his pocket. Beside him, Sam sighed and gave him a pained, soulful stare, but Dean turned away, trained his eyes on the bar, and ignored him. The sons of bitches were having the time of their lives in there, and over their dead bodies – they used to be friends, goddammit! As if on cue, just then the back door to the bar opened and out came two familiar faces. Walt was grinning as he lazily stumbled towards his car and clapping Roy on the shoulder. Roy, for his part, didn't look like he was having such a good time; he was casting some smiles to Walt, but his eyebrows were furrowed together and he kept looking down and quickly shaking his head. Sam moved to one end of the truck, still hidden in the undergrowth and Dean's hand went to the waistline of his pants and the .38 Colt pistol stored there and then they surrounded Roy and Walt just as they were standing next to the truck with Walt fidgeting for the keys.

"Evening, fellas," Dean called out, stepping in front of the car and waving his gun menacingly.

The two hunters stared at Dean in widemouthed disbelief, and then over at Sam, who was standing behind the car and aiming his pistol at them as well.

"What the -" Walt opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, looking like a fish on dry land.

"Holy -" Roy stammered.

"What's the matter?" Dean said with a smirk. "You two look like you've seen a ghost." In unison, he and Sam advanced a couple more steps on the hapless pair.

"How -" Roy started.

"Not possible." Walt's eyes were big and he kept blinking as if he didn't believe them. "No. You're dead! I stood there and watched you bleed out myself. You're dead."

His hand went for his gun, but Dean quickly took several more steps towards them with his own gun trained on Walt's heart.

"Easy there, tiger. Couldn't kill us back in that motel room, what makes you think your luck's gonna change now?"

Walt hesitated and, taking advantage of the shock and awe of their entrance, he and Sam closed in on them. In a couple of seconds, Sam had Roy's face shoved into the side of their truck with his arm twisted behind his back and Dean was grabbing Walt gruffly by the front of his open button-down shirt, the gun knocked out of his hand and onto the gravel beside him. Dean gave Walt a hard punch to the jaw and then shoved his back hard against the truck's driver's side door next to Roy.

"Easy!" Roy barked at Sam as he tried to wriggle his arm free from Sam's grasp.

Walt looked over at his partner and smirked. "That how you like it, Sammy? That's the position you put 'ol Dean here into when the two of you are fuc-"

Dean gave him another punch in the jaw and then another one on the cheek for good measure, then punched him hard in the stomach once, then twice. Walt groaned and his legs buckled out from under him, but Dean grabbed him and kept him upright.

"Told you when I came back I'd be pissed."

Walt's left cheek and lip were bleeding and he was staring at Dean with unfocused eyes, but whether it was because he had a concussion or he was just that drunk was anybody's guess.

"How?" Walt rasped.

"What are you?" Roy asked.

"Well, it looks like someone upstairs really likes us, because when you shot us, we took the escalator straight up to Heaven."

"Heaven?" Roy sounded incredulous as he shifted his eyes from Dean to Sam and back again.

"That's right, we were in Heaven, both of us. But you see, the problem is, God still wants us down here, he wants us alive and so he had his angels put us back into our bodies, okay, to fulfill his will. So, now we can come here and open a nice, big bottle of 'screw you' on your asses."

He punched Walt again, this time in the nose, and a steady stream of blood trickled down his face.

"Heaven?" Roy repeated the question as if he kept hearing the word incorrectly. "No, no way they sent the guy who opened a door to let Satan himself walk the earth to Heaven."

Dean smirked, then let go of Walt. After what he'd done to Walt, he didn't really need to be held in place; as soon as Dean let him go, he slid down the truck and onto the gravel. Dean cocked his gun and aimed it right at Roy's face, then at the top of Walt's head.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you both right now, like you just did to us without so much as a second thought."

"We were just doing the job," Roy pleaded, "it's nothing personal."

"Please," Sam said and then let go of Roy. As soon as Roy was free, he brought his arm forward and rubbed it as if trying to get circulation back into it, but he made no attempt to move. "Please," he said again, "we just want to be left alone. Dean and I, we're trying to fix this; we're on the same team here."

Sam held out a hand to Walt offering to help him up, but Walt scowled scornfully at it and continued to sit.

"I'm sorry, but we're not," Roy said. He shook his head. "Look, Sam, you always seemed like a nice guy. And I always liked you personally. But I'd hunt you down again if I thought it'd make a difference in all this. You don't fight on the side of demons and let the Devil himself out of his cage to kill us all without something deeply evil inside you."

Sam's eyes went dewy and he clenched his jaw and nodded his head. Dean, on the other hand, punched Roy in the face. He was furious, mostly because he hated hearing the words that were screaming in his head said out loud.

"God says he's worthy, and that's a big enough endorsement. And, in any case, we're not going anywhere. So call up your entourage and tell them to leave us the hell alone." He put the safety back on his gun and stowed it back in the waistband of his jeans. "Next time, I'm not leaving survivors. Come on, Sam, let's go."

With that, he turned and walked away without so much as a backwards glance at Roy or Walt; they weren't the ones he needed to worry about. He could hear Sam's footsteps behind him as they walked to where they'd parked the Impala a few hundred yards up the block. He thought kicking those douchebags' asses would make him feel better, but if anything he only felt worse. He usually felt energized after a fight, but right then he just felt empty, as empty as his words were in telling Roy and Walt that God thought Sam was worthy. Hopefully they might buy that crap, but God didn't give a fuck one way or the other about them. And Roy was right at least about one thing – it was true that Sam had something dark and evil inside him when he'd popped the gate on the apocalypse. And Dean had just kept telling himself Sam had done it because of the demon blood, or because of Ruby and Yellow Eyes and every other demon who had manipulated him, but the truth was it had been inside him so long, he couldn't be sure it just wasn't always there. _What are Sam's sins?_ Lucifer had asked him that in a dream before. _Demons don't make evil; they just nudge it along in the right direction._ It was just a dream, and the thought was crazy; Sam had made some monster mistakes in his life, bigger than just about anyone else in the history of mistakes, but he'd known Sam his whole life. Sam was _good_ – he was compassionate, caring, kind, and he could make even the hardest hearts fall apart with that earnest, dewy-eyed, soulful stare of his. But if he was being honest with himself, which he never liked to do, deep down somewhere inside himself he'd been asking himself that question for a long time.

He already knew Sam was going to leave him, and likely soon. He should have seen it coming for a while now; Sam had already been retreating away from him for weeks. Dean already knew from seeing his future self how it would end for Sam once they separated. Lucifer was wearing Sam to the prom, it was just a matter of when. He thought back to something Gordon Walker had said to him a few years back: _"Let's say you were cruising around in that car of yours and you had little Hitler riding shotgun, back when he was just some goofy, crappy artist. But you knew what he was going to turn into someday. You'd take him out, no questions, am I right?"_ No, Gordon wasn't right then, or now. But knowing now what Sam was going to become – and it was so much worse than he, or even Gordon, ever could have imagined – even if the other hunters didn't know about Sam being Lucifer's vessel, how much could he blame their old friends for turning on them and trying to wipe them both out to stop further damage? Because they knew whatever Sam was up to that Dean wasn't a strong enough man to stop him.

They reached the Impala and Dean reached for the door.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

"Thanks. For what you said back there."

"I was full of crap, Sam."

"I know, with all that crap about God. But thanks for having my back. I've got yours, too, Dean. I'd do anything for you, Dean."

Dean scowled, rolled his eyes, and climbed into the car. Sure, Sam would do anything for him until he got in Sam's way again. Well, whatever; Dean would use Sam's help for however long he got it, but he knew for sure that he couldn't depend on his brother always being there, or even fighting on his side, not like he'd hoped before. At least now that they'd sent a clear message to Roy and Walt, he probably wasn't going to have to worry about keeping Sam away from Lucifer and hunters at the same time. He had to find a way to keep Sam safe while he figured out his next move; after all, Sam wasn't going to be around for much longer to protect him.

Dean drove on, heading west on I-90, heading as fast and as far away as he could from where they'd already been tracked by hunters, and soon the police. As they drove on, he and Sam didn't talk; Sam stared broodily out the window while Dean stared at the road ahead. He didn't even bother playing music to break up the silence. No, he would never hurt Sam, couldn't even if wanted to, not really, not anymore than a single punch in the face every once in a great while when Sam made him really angry, and even then he always felt bad about it once he'd calmed down. And if – or, rather when – Sam went to Lucifer, no one would be able to stop him, and it would be all his fault because he a weak man, a broken man. He just wasn't strong enough. Sam didn't want him, and their sticking together was the only shot in hell they had in winning this thing. He was no good to anyone.

He was deep in thought about this when Sam suddenly broke the silence about an hour into their drive: "Dean, we need to talk."

"No, Sam, we don't."

"Dean, I'm serious."

"So am I."

"There's something I need to tell you about Heaven…"

Dean looked away from the road and cast Sam the sparest of glances to say, "Shut-up, Sam, I mean it."

"Look, while I was talking to Ash -"

"I said shut-up, Sam."

"We have to talk about this sooner or later."

"Then later."

"I don't want to lose what we had -"

"Do you see me going anywhere, Sam? Drop it."

Twelve hours into the drive, Dean started to get tired and he and Sam switched places.

"Just keep heading west?" Sam asked as he pulled out of a gas station and back in the direction of I-90. He was still wearing an expression as if someone had kicked his dog, but Dean pretended like he didn't notice.

"Yeah. I wanna get as far away from Sioux Falls as possible. I'll tell you something; we won't be able to go back there for a while, not after all that."

Dean tried to sleep, but only managed to circle it as his exhausted brain kept forcing images on him of Heaven and his many Sam-possessed-by-Lucifer dreams. What if he could stop Sam? Well, he couldn't personally, and no one could stop Lucifer, except Michael. He thought about Pamela telling him that maybe he didn't need to fight Michael so hard. _A lot of people will die,_ he'd said. _And then they come here!_ Pamela had exclaimed, as if it was some kind of vacation they were all winning instead of dying bloody. She and Ash were pretty happy in Heaven, though. At least Michael could do the job Dean could never bring himself to. The thought was fucking terrible; Michael and Lucifer would roast half the planet; people would die by the billions. With he and Sam going at it the way they were though, buying into this bullshit that their love for one another would give them the strength to save the world, billions of people were going to die, anyway. There was no winning this; it was just too big, and he was all alone. Beside him, he heard Sam's tell-tale pensive sigh that said he was about to start talking about feelings. He relaxed his body and kept his eyes closed, but he knew he wasn't fooling Sam. Sure enough, a couple of hours after Sam had taken the wheel, he was trying to talk to him again about the one thing Dean never wanted to think about again.

"Dean, I'm sorry," he said. "I was a kid when those things happened. I was wrong and I was selfish and I didn't think about how those things affected you. But I've changed, Dean. And I love you more than I ever loved another person, hell, more than I could another person."

After spending fourteen hours in an enclosed space with nothing but his tortured thoughts, hearing Sam declare his everlasting love for him was upsetting to the point of making him want to cry. "Sam, I will punch you in the nose. I mean it."

Ten hours later, they pulled off the road in a secluded, heavily shaded, area near Olympic National Forest off of highway 119 in Washington and took a nap. The sun was still up, but the two of them were so exhausted that it didn't matter. Sam crawled into the backseat while Dean stayed in the front. Almost immediately after he lay his head down on the driver's side seat, Dean fell into a dreamless sleep.


	44. The Power of Love

Over the next two weeks, Dean was more moody and withdrawn than usual. He didn't want to talk to Sam, except to talk about possible upcoming cases, vapid conversation about things like the weather, the car, what kind of food they should grab for their next meal, or asking Sam to pass the ketchup. He definitely didn't want to talk about Heaven, their relationship, or the apocalypse. When Sam found demon omens lighting up all over Blue Earth Minnesota, he hadn't even managed to finish his sentence before Dean was already chucking their things in the car, ready to head out. Sam was heartbroken; their relationship was in shambles and Dean was barely even trying to hide anymore how hopeless he felt and Sam had no idea how, or even if, he could fix it.

So Sam wasn't completely surprised when, two weeks after coming back from Heaven and barely an hour after Dean had somehow managed to kill the Whore of Babylon, who supposedly could only be killed by a "servant of Heaven", that Dean took off in the Impala, leaving Sam in their motel room with a hung-over angel and an injured, grieving pastor high on painkillers. Sam tried for a wild second to run after him, but it was pointless; Dean was barreling out of the parking lot at 40 miles an hour, at least. Sam put his hands on his head and watched his brother drive off without him. He could see the hopelessness in Dean's eyes ever since Heaven and guessed Dean might do something stupid like this, but wasn't fully prepared to see it actually happen.

When he got back into the motel room, Castiel eyed him suspiciously. "What happened? Where's Dean?"

Sam sighed. It pained him to say it. "Michael."

Castiel stood at attention. "We have to stop him."

Sam looked at the floor and swallowed hard to fight back the tears. "I know. I think I know where to find him." He gestured to Pastor Gideon. "I think first we have to...uh," he turned to Pastor Gideon. "Is there anything we can do?"

Pastor Gideon nodded. "You can help me get to church. Not the best time for me to speak, but everyone's going to need some answers. And I am somewhat responsible for this."

Sam shook his head. "You're not. You didn't know."

Castiel rolled his eyes, impatiently walked over to them, and brought his fingers to both of their foreheads. "Let's go."

Sam and Castiel, who was no longer drunk but as surly as ever, were gone before the next morning and on their hunt for Dean. He wasn't sure about all the stops on Dean's farewell tour, but he only needed to know one of them for Castiel to beam him straight to Dean. It took Castiel all of twenty minutes to find Lisa Braeden, so all they had to do was sit tight and wait for Dean to make contact. It took all of two days. Castiel wanted to grab Dean immediately, but Sam talked him out of it; Lisa was the only woman who, as far as Sam could tell, Dean had even come close to loving. Dean deserved to say his good-byes first. Castiel watched over the house while Sam waited in his motel room two towns over. He imagined the things Dean was telling Lisa just then – probably something about wanting that apple pie, American dream, nuclear family with her, if he could ever have it, but he couldn't, so take care of yourself, Lisa, it was nice knowing you.

The papers of his book rustled as Castiel re-entered his room. Sam sat straight up and quickly put the book aside.

"So...how did it go?"

Castiel scowled, in his regular surly mood since Dean took off. "The meeting lasted maybe ten minutes. He's back in his room now in the next town over from Lisa's with a bottle of liquor. He's writing a note."

"Oh, okay." Sam nodded absentmindedly, feeling nervous. "Good, good."

"Now?" Castiel asked him impatiently.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, do it."

Cas touched his fingers to Sam's forehead and in an instant he was standing outside Dean's motel. He wasn't sure what to say as he walked up to the door: how could you leave me? How dare you give up like this? Please stay and let us figure this out together? He picked the lock to Dean's room and as the door swung open, he saw Dean standing in front of a mirror and pouring himself a glass of Johnny Walker blue label. On the bed halfway across the room was a sealed brown box, no doubt containing all of Dean's most cherished belongings. He looked as sad and defeated as Sam had ever seen him and his face fell, feeling broken from just watching it.

"Sending someone a candy gram?"

Dean whirled around and stared at him in open-mouthed shock. "How'd you find me?"

If Sam didn't feel so overwhelmed with grief, he would have actually chuckled at that; Dean was always bragging about how easily he could find Sam whenever he took off, but he somehow didn't grasp that, after spending almost 24 hours a day seven days a week with each other almost their entire lives, Sam knew him just as well.

"Well, you're going to kill yourself, right? Not hard to figure out the stop on the good-bye tour. How is Lisa doing, anyways?"

Dean scowled. "I'm not going to kill myself."

"No? So Michael's _not_ about to make you his Muppet?" Dean continued to scowl at him and said nothing. "What the hell, man? This is how it ends? You just…walk out?

Dean poured himself another glass of whiskey and looked down. "Yeah, I guess."

"How could you do that?"

"How could _I_?" Sam flinched, waiting for the coming fight, what he knew all of this was really about. "All you've _ever_ done is run away."

"And I was wrong. Every single time I did! Just…please. Not now."

"Oh, not now. So you want me to wait for a time that's more convenient for you? Or you want me to wait for you to walk out first?"

"I'm not the one walking out. I will never walk out. Not ever again. I'll never leave you, Dean."

Dean tried on a grin but instead it came off as a grimace. "Yeah, sure. When all this is over, you can swing by every once in a while, visit me and Lisa and Ben."

Sam sighed. "I would, but I know that's not what you want, not ideally at least. But I want you to know I get it now, Dean. I do. Everything I did, what I said, I was just trying to give you what I thought you wanted." He shook his head and sighed exasperatedly, once again frustrated with his own past stupidity. "I'm sorry I didn't see it before. But I do now. And I want it, too."

Dean's mouth dropped open again and his eyes widened in shock as he stared at Sam. Sam swallowed hard, pruned his eyebrows together in a thoughtful expression, and nodded as they communicated the words they couldn't say. Dean wanted to know what changed Sam's mind, but was too afraid to ask, and Sam was too afraid to answer; any more mention of Heaven and he might lose this moment with Dean, who very clearly did not ever want to talk about it again.

Sam's eyes felt wet. He smiled sadly, and gestured between the two of them. "This. Us. Forever. Hell or high water." He nodded. "I want it, too."

Dean cast his eyes down to the floor and nodded slightly. When he looked up again though, his face was pained with a tinge of anger.

"You got no idea what I want. And this whole notion that our love for each other makes us strong enough to ice the devil and stop the apocalypse? It's a fairy tale, man. Now, get out of my way."

Sam sighed and shook his head. "We can do this. Together, as a family. Bobby is working on something."

Dean looked skeptical as he crossed the room to his bed, glass full of whiskey in hand. "Oh, really? What?" Sam clenched his jaw; at the moment, Bobby was pouring through 1500 years of forgotten Biblical myth and probably coming up with bupkes. "You got nothing and you know it." He drank the glass down as easily as if it was a coke, and that was when Sam knew this heart-to-heart he was attempting would never work right then; Dean was drunk and feeling hopeless and there was no talking to him.

"You know I have to stop you."

Dean frowned and set down his glass. "Yeah, well, you can try." Then his face turned hard and angry. "Just remember: You're not all hopped up on demon blood this time."

"Yeah, I know. But I brought help."

The back of Dean's shirt fluttered as Castiel appeared behind him. Dean turned and Castiel touched his fingers to Dean's forehead and he collapsed onto the floor.

"We should have skipped straight to this," Castiel said as he easily picked up Dean and slung him over his shoulder.

Sam nodded and sighed. "I know. I just...had to try, you know?"

Castiel squinted at Sam, looking equal parts thoughtful and impatient. "As your soul's complement," he said as he began crossing the room towards him, "I can assure you, you will have eons to spend with each other to mend this gap."

Castiel reached out for him, but Sam picked up Dean's box and shook his head. "Dean's going to want his car. I'll meet up with you in a few hours."

Sam felt a gust of wind blow back his hair and in an instant Castiel and Dean vanished on their way to Bobby's.

.

Their newly resurrected brother Adam sat on Bobby's daybed in the living room, fresh out of the shower, wearing a change of Dean's clothes, and holding a glass of whiskey. He'd been topside for no more than an hour and Sam simply couldn't believe the reason he was giving them as to why. It's not that he didn't think Adam was telling him the truth about being told he was chosen to be Michael's new vessel, it's that the whole idea of it was insane; after all that – having a Cupid mark their mom and dad to make sure they got together, making his soulmate his brother to give them a stronger connection, and getting a prophet to write an entire biblical volume about their lives together – they would move on from him to Adam as Michael's vessel? Still, he was a Winchester… and Winchesters were cursed; if Castiel seemed to think it was possible, he supposed it was, technically. Something still just didn't smell right. And now he had two brothers to convince not to flee the house and say 'yes' to Michael.

"Now, Adam…" Sam sat down on the edge of Bobby's desk and fixed Adam with an intense stare, "the angels are lying to you. They're full of crap."

Adam smirked. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"Really. Why not?"

"Um, 'cause they're _angels_."

Sam rolled his eyes but nodded. Persuasive argument, if a person didn't know better. "They tell you they were gonna roast half the planet?"

"They said the fight might get pretty hairy, but it is the devil, right? So we got to stop him."

"Yeah, but there's another way."

Adam's eyes shifted from Sam's face to Dean's and then back again and that's when Sam saw Dean was actually glaring at him.

"Great. What is it?" Adam asked.

Dean smirked. "We're working on the power of love."

"How's that going?"

"Mmm. Not good."

Sam surreptitiously fingered Dean's amulet in his pocket and tried to stay calm. He didn't know if he wanted to punch Dean so hard that he fell out of his chair or just walk out and find a good, isolated place to sob. It hurt every time Dean threw that in their face. Sam didn't know how, but their love for each other was enough: it kept them human, it made them strong enough to not give in. And it made them different than Michael and Lucifer, who had let their issues and contentions twist them to the point where they were willing to rip each other apart. Except Dean didn't have faith in himself, or him, or Bobby, or...anything. Sam had no idea how he was going to convince Dean to stay with him and also get Adam to see the truth. But he had to try; until he could get Dean back on board, he needed to have enough faith for the both of them.

.

Dean paced in Bobby's panic room, looking for weapons. Naturally, none were to be found; Castiel had cleaned the whole place out before beaming him down. Now that Adam was topside and Michael had two willing vessels, both on lock-down, Sam had suggested chucking him in here. He heard Sam's tell-tale soft steps coming down the stairs and a moment later the door swung open and Sam stepped through the doorway, standing in front of Cas who stared at him with burning anger so intense that it made Dean do a double take. He hadn't seen anyone fix him with a stare like that since Sam right after he had kissed Wendy in front of him at the mental institution. It made him so deeply uncomfortable that all he could do is smirk at Castiel.

"Well, Cas, not for nothing," Dean joked, "but the last person who looked at me like that…I got laid."

Dean winked at him and Castiel's expression only intensified, while Sam just looked embarrassed. "Uh, why don't you, uh, go keep an eye on Adam?

Without a word, Castiel swung his arm through the air and the door closed. Sam turned back to Dean and sighed.

Dean gestured at the room around them. "Is this really necessary?"

Sam smiled without humor. "Well, I mean, we got our hands full, Dean... A house full of flight risks."

Yeah, their other flight risk, their brother Adam, who was no doubt also devising a way to get out of the house and to Michael. Being under much less security than him, he could imagine which one of them was more likely to get out of that house.

"I'm not letting him do it," he said.

"Who, Adam? No, I'm... I'm not, either."

"No, you're not getting me." Dean turned away from Sam and walked to the other side of the room and sat down on the small wooden desk that sat there.

"Oh, no, no," Sam insisted, "I 'get' you perfectly. But I'm not letting you do it, either."

Dean shook his head and eyed up his Sasquatch brother. Sam was trying to earnestly to get him to stay. Dean appreciated that. And he believed Sam really believed the things he was saying and Dean appreciated that, too. But he wasn't changing his mind and there were some things Sam needed to understand before he either left, or Sam let him go. "That kid's not taking a bullet for me."

"Dean…"

"I'm serious. I mean, think about how many people we've gotten killed, Sam. Mom, Dad, Jess," Sam flinched at the sound of her name. Dean hated this, but he kept going; it was time for Sam to know the truth, "Jo, Ellen. Should I keep going?"

"It's not like we pulled the trigger."

"We might as well have. I'm tired, man. I'm tired of fighting who I'm supposed to be."

"Well, do you think maybe you could take a half a second and stop trying to sacrifice yourself for a change? Maybe we could actually stick together?"

Dean looked down at the floor. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

Dean shook his head. He hated hurting Sam. Sam deserved to know, but he'd hoped he would never have to look Sam in the eyes and say this to him out loud; he'd hoped his suicide note he'd left behind would cover it.

"Dean, seriously" Sam persisted. "Tell me. I—I want to know."

"I just…I—I don't believe."

"In what?"

Sam asked the question, but Dean could tell by the look in his eyes that he hadn't really needed to. Well, if he insisted on hearing him say it, he had no choice.

"In you. I mean, I don't," his voice faltered for a moment. "I don't know whether it's gonna be demon blood or some other demon chick or what, but…I do know they're gonna find a way to turn you."

"So you're saying I'm not strong enough."

"You're angry, you're self-righteous." Sam's eyes looked shiny and Dean closed his eyes to not have to see it. "Lucifer's gonna wear you to the prom, man. It's just a matter of time."

"Don't say that to me. Not you...of all people."

"I don't want to. But it's the truth. And when Satan takes you over, there's got to be somebody there to fight him, and it ain't gonna be that kid. So, it's got to be me."

Several tears rolled down Sam's face making his cheeks shiny, but he wiped them away with his sleeve and cleared his throat. He nodded and looked down at the floor. "You're wrong."

"I'm sorry, Sam, but I don't think I am."

"Remember," Sam's voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "Remember what Castiel said to us after Gabriel trapped us in TV Land?"

"No."

"He told us then that our love has the power to destroy worlds. But it also has the power to save them."

Dean crossed his arms. "Well, looks like our track record is oh for, I don't know, a million?"

"Dean, please -"

"I mean it. We weren't able to save any of the people we love. I sold my soul for you because I couldn't live without you and sent myself straight to Hell, where I broke the first seal, by the way. You tried to help me and ended up drinking demon blood. We didn't stop the apocalypse, and the world is burning."

Sam shook his head and gestured a hand vaguely in the air. "We could have stopped it. If Castiel had managed to get you to that church just five seconds sooner, we would have stopped it."

"But we didn't."

Sam swallowed hard. "I know. It's my fault – I let Ruby get between us. But I didn't know then what I know now."

"And then," Dean gestured between them, "we started this…I don't know what to call it, between us. And it felt..." he looked for a word that could come close to describing what being with Sam felt like, "bonded. I really thought we had..." he looked down again. "But you started sucking down demon blood again anyway. So, I'm sorry, Cas is wrong. It has to end this way. It's our destiny and I'm sick of fighting it."

Sam opened his mouth as if he was going to say something more but then closed his, sniffed, and turned and walked out the door.

.

Dean awoke on Bobby's daybed with the taste of blood in his mouth, a pain in his chest every time he breathed and headache not even a whole bottle of whiskey could touch. At first all he could see was tones of grey and green and he blinked only to find he was beating back moisture in his eyes; he must have been crying in his angel-induced sleep. He was in so much pain, he couldn't imagine getting to sleep otherwise. Bobby was sitting right beside him giving him a weak smile.

"How you feeling, boy?"

Dean tried to roll over on his side but instead a sharp pain shot through his chest and he groaned and stopped moving.

"Cas is fixing you up, little by little. Much as he can with so much of his mojo gone, that is."

"Where's Sam?"

Bobby was silent for a moment too long before he said, "He's in the panic room with Adam."

Bobby definitely knew something he wasn't telling him, not that he could blame him, he supposed; Cas had interceded before he could've contacted Michael during this escape attempt, but eventually he would succeed and in a short while, once he successfully got to Michael, Michael would be in his head and know everything he did. Now that Dean had tried to turn onto his side he was lying on his arm at an uncomfortable angle. He tried to move it, only to find that not only he couldn't, but the motion of even trying sent another wave of pain through him so intense he thought he might vomit. He tightly shut his eyes and groaned again.

"Take it easy there, son. Just lie still."

They stayed silent for several minutes with Dean lying on the couch stifling groans of pain every time he so much as breathed the wrong way and with Bobby sitting in his wheelchair just watching him. Dean could practically hear the cogs in Bobby's head turning as he thoughtfully rubbed his face.

"Why?" Bobby finally asked.

"Come on, Bobby," Dean said in a whisper, because that was the only way he could talk without being in agony, "you've been there through both of his demon detoxes. You really think for one second Sam isn't eventually gonna say 'yes' to Lucifer?"

Bobby's eyes grew wide and he shook his head. "Well, I'd hate to think you've been holding against him this whole time that he went up against Famine and lost." Dean was silent, not sure what to say. It wasn't just what happened with Famine; it was Ruby, the demon blood, the lying, opening Lucifer's cage. It was also Flagstaff, and Stanford, and every other time Sam had screwed him over. Bobby sighed. "I know Sam's got issues. And I worry about him, too. But don't forget, he's also the one who ganked Famine. He's strong, Dean. And he's even stronger when he's with you. I'll tell you one thing: if I wanted anyone fighting on my side, it'd be Sam."

Dean laid there for several moments thinking about that. When he'd seen Sam back then, he'd looked like a nightmarish monster with his face covered in blood and he was a ball of terrifying, untethered rage. But in the end he'd had more presence of mind than Cas, who was sitting in a corner of the room shoving fistfulls of raw meet into his mouth.

"Bobby, I -"

A gust of wind blew through the house, scattering papers off Bobby's desk and rustling Dean's hair and in that moment Castiel appeared. He called out for Sam before leveling his gaze on Dean and when he saw he was awake, the angel crossed the room and Dean could feel Castiel's clammy fingers on his forehead. When Dean awoke again, he was handcuffed to the bed. He raised himself slightly and saw he was in back in the panic room. The pain in his ribs was gone thankfully; Cas must have given him another round of healing before sending him down here.

"How you feeling?"

Dean looked to his left and saw Sam sitting on a chair beside the desk and eyeing him up with concern. Dean sat up on the bed and groaned.

"Word to the wise: don't piss off the nerd angels." Sam looked at him, brooding and pensive, and nodded. "So how's it going?"

"Adam's gone. The angels have him."

Dean's mouth fell open in shock. "Where?"

"The room where they took you."

"You sure?"

Sam nodded again. "Cas did a re-con."

"And?"

"And the place is crawling with mooks…Pretty much a no-shot-in-hell, hail-Mary kind of thing."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Ah, so the usual. What are you going to do?"

He wasn't sure why Sam was sharing all this information with him, but he was glad to be in the loop, especially because he knew Bobby wasn't so forthcoming earlier in the living room and he doubted Cas would be, either. But it was nice to share this moment with Sam. And whatever Sam's stupid, suicidal plan was, he still wanted to hear it, to know how he was going to die.

"For starters…I'm bringing you with."

That was when Dean saw Sam was playing with his handcuff key in his hands. He got up from the chair, walked over to him, and bent over the bed frame. Dean blinked and his mouth dropped open in shock. Not even Sam was this stupid.

"Excuse me?"

"There are too many of them." Sam jabbed the key into the lock. "We can't do it alone." He twisted it and his wrist was free. "And uh, you're pretty much the only game in town."

Dean's eyes grew wide and he couldn't help continuing to give him that slack-jawed look. Did Sam really not understand what he was doing? "Isn't that a bad idea?"

"Cas and Bobby think so. I'm not so sure."

This amount of blind, stupid trust was unlike Sam and, truth be told, unnerving. Sam shouldn't – hell, no one should trust him this much; he'd met himself in the future and knew enough not to even trust himself this much. He was getting what he wanted – a path straight to Michael and a way to save their little brother from becoming Michael's meat puppet, but doing it this way, it felt… wrong. He didn't want Sam serving him up to Michael, all the while expecting him to be on his side so the last thing he'd get to see in his life would be Sam's devastated face as Dean left him for good.

"Well, they're right. Because either it's a trap to get me there to make me say yes, or it's not a trap and I'm gonna say yes anyway. And I will. I'll do it. Fair warning."

"No, you won't. When push shoves, you'll make the right call."

Dean rubbed his freed wrist and contemplated that. Every other time they'd been here, it was Sam insisting he was doing the right thing and he was chucking him into the panic room for his own good. He'd hated himself for it every time, but he'd had to do it. And here was Sam, the stupid son of a bitch just asking him to...waltz out of here with him and do it his way.

"You know, if tables were turned…I'd let you rot in here. Hell, I have let you rot in here."

"Yeah, well…I guess I'm not that smart."

"I—I don't get it. Sam, why are you doing this?"

"Because, I believe in you. I believe in us. And I'm never leaving you, not again. You're it for me – my partner in everything. I'm not walking out on you and I'm not leaving you in here. If there's a fight, we're doing it together."

"Sam, I'm warning you, this isn't gonna go down the way you want it to."

Sam took a sharp intake of breath. "I know you won't let me down. You're still my big brother."

.

Dean sped off away from Van Nuys, California, travelling with Sam down a deserted highway in an old, rust-bucket of a truck he'd hot-wired. Cas had disappeared to who the hell even knew where and Michael had Adam. Zachariah was dead, so at least that was one very small win in all this.

"So," Sam said.

Dean waited but Sam didn't finish his sentence. "'So' what?"

Sam looked over to him and for the first time in ages Dean saw his brother genuinely smile. "I saw your eyes. You were totally rockin' the 'yes' back there. So, what changed your mind?"

Dean let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Honestly? The damnedest thing. I mean, the world's ending. The walls are coming down on us, and I look over to you and all I can think about is, 'this stupid son of a bitch brought me here.'" Sam chuckled and sheepishly looked down. "I just didn't want to let you down."

Sam looked back up. "You didn't." He smiled and held up a finger. "You almost did. But you didn't."

Dean swallowed hard. "I owe you an apology."

"No, man. No, you don't."

"Just...let me say this." Sam looked ahead uncomfortably and sighed. "I don't know if it's being a big brother or what, but to me, you've always been this snot-nosed kid that I've had to keep on the straight and narrow. I think we both know that that's not you anymore. But my thinking that way has caused a lot of problems. With everything, including… you know, us. I doubted you when you told me what you wanted, I kept looking for the moment when you'd take your shot and finally leave, I even made this – this thing we did as something I needed to do to protect you."

Sam's uncomfortable gaze quickly went to frightened with a touch of disgusted. "It's not," he said firmly.

"I know that."

Sam's lips turned downward into a look that said he felt a little sickened. "Tell me that's not why you -"

"No. It's not. I wanted it – want it, still." He paused, hating this discomfort. _This is the last chance you've got, so make it good,_ he told himself. "You're it to me too, Sam." He chanced a glance at Sam and found him still looking at the floor, his jaw clenched and his face was awash with warring emotions – hope, embarrassment, fear, happiness, regret. Sam gave a little head nod and Dean looked back at the road and cleared his throat, wanting to get this speech over with. "I'm just saying. If I had seen you for the man you've become instead of the kid you used to be, I would've – we could've avoided a lot of this. So from here on out, I mean, hell, if you're grown-up enough to find faith in me…the least I can do is return the favor. So screw destiny, right in the face. From here on out, it's just you and me, Sammy. I say we take the fight to them, and do it our way."

This time when Sam looked at him, his face lit up in a way that reminded him of when Sam was a teenager and Dean had told him they could play with fireworks, or that they could sneak out and go to a carnival Sam had desperately wanted to go to. It was not just happy, but hopeful, conspiring, peaceful.

"Sounds good," Sam said.

Van Nuys was over a day's drive from Sioux Falls, but after being on the road for eight hours neither of them could keep their eyes open any longer. Dean needed to switch out with Sam if they were going to keep driving, but Sam had been sleeping for over an hour already, his head pushed up against the mud-stained window and making little fog prints on the glass. He looked so peaceful that Dean didn't want to wake him, but if he didn't get some sleep soon they were going to crash. They were in the middle of nowhere, Utah near Fishlake National Forest. Everywhere the eye could see was flat, pastoral land with bluish purple mountains in the distance, made darker by the night's sky. Dean pulled off the highway and leaned the back of his head against the grimy, moldy fabric seat. It was no use; the seat was hard as a rock and the top of it was so low Dean felt like he was resting his head more on the tops of his shoulders than the headrest. He groaned and sat back up. Beside him, Sam made a little snuffling sound. Dean watched his brother's soft, untroubled face. He leaned over, smoothed several strands of hair out of his face, and tucked them behind his ear. Sam twitched his nose and made the little mole beside it move. Dean silently moved in further, kissed Sam's mole, and tightly shut his eyes. Quickly then, he slid back to his side.

"Goodnight, Sam," he whispered.

He swung open the truck's door, but instead of getting out, he felt a hand tightly gripping his arm. Sam's eyes were wide open.

"Where are you going?"

"Hey, easy there, Sam. I'm just gonna sleep in the truck bed."

Sam visibly relaxed and let go of Dean's arm. He yawned and cricked his neck to either side, then winced and rubbed the right side of his neck.

"Yeah, sounds good."

Dean shrugged and got out and a second later he heard the passenger door creek open and slam shut. Dean lowered the tailgate to the truck bed and climbed inside. The back of the truck was streaked with mud and had little flecks of rust around the corners, but otherwise wasn't too bad. Sam and Dean took off their over-shirts, rolled then up into little balls, and laid down on the flatbed beside each other. The night was clear and starry. Dean could feel Sam's body heat rolling off of him and it made him feel warm and tired. The two of them stared at the stars silently together and then slowly dropped off while listening to the crickets.


	45. Make Love Like A Man

The sun was shining in Dean's face. He cracked his eyes open, then threw a hand up to shield himself from the sun, and finally turned his head away from it and over at Sam, who was still sleeping beside him on the flatbed of the pick-up truck, a streak of mud lining the side of his face from when he'd fallen asleep last night in the passenger's seat. The corners of Dean's mouth stretched up into a little smile. He remembered lying there and watching Sam sleep after the first time they'd first agreed to start up this thing between them. Back then he'd mostly made peace with his relationship with Sam turning sexual because he had gotten Sam's emphatic consent – hell, he'd practically begged for it – and, even if Dean didn't think Sam appreciated the kind of fucked-up existence he was committing himself to long-term, Dean had accepted they were both going to Hell anyway and so there was no point in not at least enjoying the ride.

But things were different now: it had taken him too long to see that Sam was no longer a kid who he had to take care of, and he hadn't been in a long time. Sam's consent was his to make completely, and Sam understood the risks and pitfalls of his decision just as well as he understood the blind faith he'd put in Dean to make the right call about Michael, which in the end Dean realized wasn't blind at all. Sam knew him, knew him even better than he knew himself, and Sam wanted this, not because he wanted to please his big brother or because he was satisfying some brief, short-sighted want, but because he wanted him as-is, the only person whose every virtue and every flaw he knew down to the last detail. It had taken him too long to see it, almost until it was too late, but when he'd looked past Zachariah's smug face and into his brother's eyes, he knew not only did he not want to let Sam down, but he couldn't; he belonged to Sam, he belonged with Sam, and no other destiny anyone else would try to carve out for him would trump that. And even though he didn't like to think about Heaven and bouncing around Sam's favorite memories for eternity, he now knew he and Sam were scheduled to board the express train upstairs, where, for better or worse, they were destined to be there together, too. This, what they had between them – the love, devotion, faith, even all their problems – it was right. This was what they were really destined to be, before every creature in Heaven and Hell had tried to twist them into something else to fit their own ends. This was always how they were going to wind up with each other.

He swatted Sam lightly on the chest and Sam groaned, rolled onto his side towards him, held his hand over his eyes to shield them, and squinted at him.

"Come on, Sasquatch. Let's go."

Sam nodded and they both got up, unrolled their wrinkled, dirty over-shirts, and slid them back on before climbing out of the flatbed and jumping onto the road's dusty shoulder, kicking up little swirls of dust with their boots as they landed. Dean put back up the tailgate. Sam scrubbed a hand over his sleepy face, then turned away from Dean and moved to walk over to the passenger's side of the truck, but Dean grabbed his shirt, stopping him. Sam turned back towards him with an inquisitive expression and in response, Dean grabbed Sam's arms and brought him in for a kiss. Sam came along willingly, putting one hand on Dean's bicep and using the other to grab the back of Dean's head and run his fingers through his hair. Dean kissed him gently but insistently, just simply enjoying the feeling of Sam's soft lips against his after so long, and then he deepened the kiss, licking into Sam's mouth. Sam tasted like stale blood, a souvenir from their time yesterday with Zachariah.

A passing motorist drove by and screamed "faggots!" through their window. Dean removed a hand from Sam's arm and gave them the finger.

When they parted, he looked at Sam's face: lips turned up into a little smile and his cheeks newly flushed. Sam licked his lips and then reached out a hand and wiped the corner of Dean's mouth with his thumb, then turned again and walked to the passenger's side of the truck. Dean followed suit, climbing into the driver's side seat and they were off.

Dean flipped through the radio stations until he found one he liked. "Rambling On" blared through the speakers and Dean played the drumbeat on the steering wheel as he sang along. Sam looked thoughtful and appeared to be staring unseeingly at the road ahead. The song ended and the first chords of "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas began playing. Dean bopped his head along with the song. He expected Sam to turn down the volume, but instead Sam looked over at him, gave him a lopsided smile, and let him have his good mood through that song, and the next half dozen or so. Then the station took a commercial break and only then did Sam turn down the volume to the level of background noise.

"Hey," Sam broke in, "remember that little place out in Macungie, Pennsylvania we stayed in, probably around," he paused, "1997 maybe? The one with the nice garage and big backyard, but the faucets in the house dripped constantly -"

Dean smiled, "Yeah, and it only had that one really comfortable bed that we both had to cram into because Dad convinced the landlord to throw in a daybed for one of us, but it sucked; like, half of its springs broken." He chuckled. "Man, that place was great."

He and Sam had lived in that house for four whole months, most of it spent alone with each other while their dad was off tracking a particularly nasty and nomadic succubus. He'd actually learned how to cook in that kitchen. Every morning, he got up at 6AM and made them eggs; sometimes Sammy would stand beside him in front of the stove and whip up some pancakes, too. There was an old charcoal grill in the backyard that still worked and at the start of summer he'd cleaned it up and the two of them often grilled up hot dogs, or burgers that he'd learned how to perfectly spice by secretly watching cooking shows when Sam would lock himself in their bedroom, and they ate them while sitting under a big, shady maple tree in the backyard. The landlord had had an old Pontiac GTO that he'd let go to rust sitting in the garage and he'd had a lot of fun fixing spending hours under the hood of that thing fixing it up for a reduction in their rent. Dean was sad to see that place go.

Sam nodded. "Yeah, it was. That's where my Heaven leads, last stop before the Garden."

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat and shot Sam an inquisitive look. "How do you know that? We didn't get there."

"Ash."

"Ash?"

"Yeah. He told me Heaven is the one thing in a person's life that made them the happiest. For him it was the Roadhouse. For me, it's Macungie."

Dean's head jerked back a little in surprise and he smirked. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Dean thought about that for a moment. It was a good choice; it would have been his, too. But Sam probably already knew that; it would make sense that they'd share the last stop on their tour through their greatest hits. He could imagine why Sam was telling him this: he had committed to Sam before, back in that mental institution. And even though he had thought at the time that Sam had ended their physical relationship with his talk about how he should go to Lisa and Ben, in the end he was the one who'd tried to walk away in the most ultimate way possible, not Sam.

"You know how I keep saying I'm tired of fighting who I'm supposed to be?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"I realized back in the beautiful room I wasn't destined to be Michael's vessel, for some prize fight between two douchebags. It's with my little brother. And if that makes our relationship unconventional in a few ways," he paused, " _a lot_ of ways. Well, nothing about our lives was ever normal to begin with. You want this. I want this. I'm in. Okay?"

"Okay."

Dean nodded and chuckled. "Bitch."

Sam grinned. "Jerk."

.

When they stepped through Bobby's front door at midnight, the older man greeted them with a gruff, "well, don't you two look like hammered over crap."

"Thanks, Bobby," Dean responded, sarcastically.

Sam chuckled and readjusted a falling strap on his duffel. "Yeah, well, not exactly easy fighting the God Squad, ya know?"

Bobby gave them both an appreciative smile and a lop-sided grin. "Yeah, I know." He then gave Dean an extra big smile. "Glad to see you again, boy."

Dean nodded. "Good to see you, too Bobby. Sam was right – when push shoves, I made the right call."

Dean reached up and tousled Sam's hair. Sam ducked away and good-naturedly shoved Dean, The two looked at each other with wide-mouthed grins. Sam turned towards Bobby then and saw the older man was moving his eyes between the two of them as if he'd just figured something out.

"Glad to see you two smiling again after so long," he finally said.

Sam ran his fingers through his grimy hair. "Yeah, well, I'm gonna run upstairs and grab a shower."

Dean tightened his grip on his bag and then blew past Sam and ran towards the stairs, "Not if I get there first!"

Sam sighed and charged after him. "Aw, dude, you're a jerk!"

"Hey!" Bobby screamed out after them, "It's a small shower! Don't you dare break anything! I may not be able to come up there but I'll still kick both your asses!"

.

When Sam walked back into his and Dean's room with a towel wrapped around his waist, Dean was already lying in bed, having beaten him to the shower. Sam couldn't tell if he was wearing any clothes under the blankets, but he definitely wasn't wearing anything from the waist up. Dean looked over at Sam, quirked an eyebrow in interest and smirked.

"What do ya say about dropping that towel for me?"

Sam rolled his eyes and gave Dean a lopsided, uncomfortable smile, but untucked the towel from around his waist and threw it to the floor.

"Mm, nice," Dean growled.

Sam watched Dean shamelessly eye-fucking him and felt a blush rush through his body. Dean no doubt saw because his smirk grew even wider.

"Touch yourself," Dean said in a voice that was half-whisper, half growl.

Sam looked down at his cock, which was still mostly limp but had started to stir in interest from Dean's attention. He wanted to. He felt embarrassed and exposed standing naked in front of Dean like this, but seeing Dean's intense, shamelessly hungry stare was just so hot and made him feel emboldened. Still feeling a little ridiculous, Sam watched Dean's eyes follow his hand as it slowly travelled down and then grabbed his growing cock. He looked down and watched himself jerk it to full hardness.

"Like that?" he asked and then he looked up and saw Dean had the covers thrown off, revealing his completely naked body, and lazily stroking his already hard dick.

Sam scanned his eyes down Dean's lean, muscular body and settled on the rock-hard length in his hand. He licked his lips. "Dean?"

"Don't stop. Want you good and hard for me."

Sam bit his lip and doubled his efforts. He and Dean stared at each other as they stroked themselves. Dean wasn't moving his fist as quickly as Sam was, but his cock was already hard and straining; Sam could tell he was trying to put off orgasm as long as possible. Watching Dean's turned on face and seeing him wanting him so badly, how hard for him he already was, was better than watching porn. He slowed down his pace to match Dean's so they could prolong the moment. They were both breathing hard and slowly building up to their own separate climaxes.

"Mm, yeah, just like that," Dean whispered, "that's good." Then Dean took his hand off himself, flipped over and got down on all fours. "Now get over here and fuck me."

Sam's mouth went agape. He wanted to; holy shit did he want to. Topping Dean was his favorite way to do this and yet he could count on half a hand the number of times Dean had let him. But Bobby was right the fuck downstairs. It wasn't exactly like either of them were screamers per se… okay, sometimes they could be, when they got lost in the moment. He knew when they had to be conscientious they could be quieter, but the it was the dead of night and, other than the sounds of the house settling, the house was completely silent. And Bobby was still a trained hunter with a keen sense of hearing; Sam didn't know they could pull this off without the three of them sitting down to a very awkward breakfast the next morning.

He padded across the floor to Dean. "Can we – do you think you can be quiet? Bobby…" He let his sentence trail off, not wanting to talk about their surrogate father while Dean was all spread out in front of him.

Dean scoffed. "Well, I know I can." He looked back at Sam with a wicked smirk and wiggled his ass.

Sam groaned. Fuck it; he knew as soon as he saw Dean on all fours and asking to be fucked that he had no resolve to do anything but. He climbed up on the bed behind Dean.

"Lube?"

Dean reached under his pillow and pulled out their little travel-sized bottle. He turned his head to face Sam as he handed it over and Sam smirked as he took it. So Dean was planning this. He wondered for how long. He drizzled lube on two of his fingers, but Dean nudged him with his foot.

"Already taken care of. You can have at me."

Sam brushed a finger against Dean's hole; it was wet and open. He stifled a groan, then quickly drizzled more lube into his hand and hastily rubbed it down his aching cock, lined himself up and then pushed forward. The head easily slipped inside but he pushed himself in slowly, even though he suspected he didn't really need to; Dean had used a lot of lube, and he must have been fingering himself open almost the whole time Sam was in the shower. No wonder he was so hard already when he'd come into the room. Dean nodded his head and Sam grabbed Dean's hips, moved his pelvis back and then snapped it forward and then did it again, and again, and again, finding a slow rhythm and moving Dean's hips in time with his movements. Even though Dean had prepared himself, he was still nice and tight. God, it had been so long since they'd done this, so, so long, and he'd almost forgotten how amazing Dean felt. Sam started thrusting faster and then harder, loving every second of being so deep inside him. Dean shuddered and then dipped his head down, grabbed his pillow, and pushed it into his face to muffle a moan. Sam let out a little "guh" before biting his lips to keep further sound from escaping them. The only sounds in the room were the thwapping of their bodies continuously bumping against each other and their hard, ragged breathing. The room was hot and stifling and Sam felt beads of sweat start to form everywhere on his skin. He kissed Dean on the lower back, felt a sweat droplet fall from his forehead, and kissed Dean's back where it fell. Dean whole body was shaking now and he was making continuous muffled noises into his pillow and Sam could see he was biting it from the exertion of keeping quiet. He knew Dean was close and so was he and then Dean started fisting his own cock and Sam started thrusting faster and faster, racing towards orgasm. Not even a minute after Dean started jerking himself off, he was grunting into his pillow as he came. Sam kissed Dean along the ridges of his spine and let out a grunt followed by a deep, contented sigh as he came a minute later with one last hard, deep thrust.

Sam gingerly pulled out of Dean and then collapsed onto the bed beside him, wearing a satisfied grin so wide he was showing all his teeth.

"Thanks, Dean."

Dean used the corner of the bed sheet to wipe off his hand and then flopped down beside Sam and turned his face into the hollow of Sam's neck.

"Night, Sam."

Sam looked over at Dean and let out a relieved chuckle. He had expected some self-conscious comments about not really having wanted to bottom, or telling him once more to not expect it again for a while. But finally, after everything – all the angst, the needless self-sacrifice, fighting over their issues that kept them apart, all the self-incrimination, the guilt, and the shame, they had finally put it all behind them. Sam knew Dean was committed and Dean knew Sam was never going to leave. They both knew the other wanted this, and if there were any lingering self-doubts they knew they literally had eternity to hammer out the details. He knew he had total faith in Dean, and Dean had returned the favor. They were back to doing everything, from eating and sleeping, to having sex, to fighting the apocalypse, together. and after everything he'd done and how many times he'd let Dean down, he was going to prove he was worth it; he wasn't going to let him down, not in any of it. He was going to find a way to beat the Devil if it was the last thing he did. This man who had had known his entire life and would get to continue to know for eternity, would never be disappointed in him, not ever again. Sam leaned over to the nightstand and shut off the lamp.

"Goodnight, Dean."


	46. Twilight of the Gods

The next morning when Dean awoke to the smell of bacon and coffee, Sam was already out of bed and he could hear him and Bobby talking over the sounds of clanging pots and pans in the kitchen. Dean's skin felt stiff and sticky; his ass was coated in Sam's come and he had remnants of his own come on his hand, his chest, and even a little on his lower back where he had laid down on the sheets after some of it had shot past his hand and onto them. He needed a shower. When he rose out of bed, he felt an ache in his ass and smiled. He didn't exactly like pain during sex, but last night when they were so caught up in the moment and both so close to orgasm that Sam didn't realize how hard he was thrusting and Dean was too dizzied with lust to care, he knew Sam was being just rough enough that he was going to be a little sore the next morning and loved it. The physical reminder of what he and Sam had done, that lingering ache from his lover being inside of him, was one of his favorite parts of bottoming for Sam, besides, well, almost everything else about it.

Fifteen minutes later, Dean descended the stairs, hair still wet from the shower and wearing a fresh change of clothes. He was using his index finger to clean out one of his ears when he entered the kitchen and leveled his gaze on Bobby, who was holding a nearly empty cup of coffee and looking more exhausted and disgruntled than usual. Dean shifted his eyes to Sam, but he was standing over the stove with his back to him, using a spatula to take freshly cooked scrambled eggs off a hot skillet and onto a plate. Dean walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup, then walked the carafe over to Bobby and poured some into his cup for him.

"You alright there, Bobby?" he asked, clapping the man on the shoulder.

Bobby stared unseeingly into his coffee cup. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Just-" he looked up at Dean and then quickly back down to the coffee cup. "I'm fine." He took a sip of his coffee. "Didn't sleep too well last night."

Dean felt a twinge of discomfort at Bobby's demeanor and what that statement might mean. Sam picked up on it too because he whipped his head away from the eggs and shot Dean a wide-eyed, alarmed look, then quickly turned back to his eggs. Dean watched Sam turn the heat off on the stove and bring the plate to the kitchen table.

Bobby eyed up the bacon, eggs, toast, and pancakes piled on the kitchen table. "Reckon there's enough food there to feed a small army. Or just you two idjits." He wheeled his chair over to the table, grabbed the plate filled with eggs, and put a generous portion onto his plate. "You gonna just stand there, or are you gonna eat?"

Sam and Dean dutifully sat down and grabbed some food. The three of them served themselves food and then sat in silence for several minutes while they ate. Bobby looked contemplative and a little out of it from exhaustion as he absent-mindedly stabbed his eggs with his fork and brought them to his mouth. Sam was a little pink in the cheeks as he stared down at his plate and shoveled food into his mouth, but Dean eyed up the big, purple bags under Bobby's eyes and actually wondered if it was just last night or if it had been days since the man had slept more than two or three hours in a night.

"So," Bobby said around a mouthful of buttered toast and eyes shifted down at the table. "You said 'no' to Michael. Any ideas on how to beat the devil?"

Dean shook his head. "I'm all ears, Bobby."

Bobby picked up his fork and was silent for a moment as he thoughtfully stared at it. "I got a couple of leads you two knuckleheads might want to follow up on." Bobby took another bite of his eggs and then watched himself drag his fork over his plate. "Got a buttload of demon omens popping up all over the place in Nashville, Indiana." Bobby looked up at Dean for a brief moment and then shifted his gaze over to Sam, who was giving him a wide-eyed, earnest stare and then looked back down at his plate. "Don't yet know if it's a lead or a hunt, but might be something you boys want to check out. And I've got something else just came through yesterday; word is there's a hoodoo woman in Louisiana who says she was attacked by an angel. Managed to fend it off, too, supposedly with some heavyweight spell she worked up on her own. I think you should start there. Might not hurt to look around at some other root women and hoodoo men in the area, see what they can come up with. Word of the apocalypse has been spreading in that community. Might find some folks interested in lending a hand."

Sam nodded. "Okay, Bobby. Sounds good."

Dean cleared his throat. "We'll get a jump on that after breakfast."

Bobby took a sip of his coffee. "Afternoon is better. I got a couple of things I could use a hand with while you're here."

Dean nodded. "Sure, of course, Bobby. What you need?"

"Well, I haven't been upstairs in a long time. Bathroom could probably use a good touch-up. And the sheets on that guest bed you two have been sleeping on could probably use a change."

Sam was in the middle of cutting a pancake but then his fork clattered against his plate and he cleared his throat. "Yeah, of course. No problem, Bobby." He took a couple bites of his pancakes but then stood up abruptly. "It's already getting kinda late, so I'll just get started on that now." And just like that, Sam raced upstairs.

Bobby cocked an eyebrow at Dean. "What's got a bee in his bonnet?"

Dean sniggered, shook his head, and used his fork and knife to pull a pancake onto his plate. "No idea."

.

A week after leaving Bobby's they still had bupkes. The hoodoo woman in Louisiana turned out to be a bust; it turned out she hadn't so much fought off an angel so much as a PCP induced nightmare. They'd just finished wrapping up with her when they'd gotten another call from Bobby telling them the demon thing had been taken care of already by Reggie and Luke and it didn't turn up anything interesting. After seven days they'd nearly worn out the east coast in their search and were driving west on I-90 through Ohio on their way to talk to a psychic who could dial in to angel radio when a torrential rain hit them out of nowhere, flooding nearly all the streets in the area, including the interstate. Soon after they crossed the Indiana state line, they came across a roadblock and detour taking them onto I-69 south. The rain picked up until it was so heavy that even with the wipers on high Dean had to slow down just to barely see through the windshield. The wind started picking up and soon the gusts got so bad that the National Weather Service issued a warning to stay off the roads. Then one particular strong gust pushed the Impala into the other lane, right where a tractor trailer was driving beside them. Dean hit the brakes, swerved to the right, and narrowly avoided a collision.

"It's a friggin' hurricane out here!" Dean shouted.

Just then they saw bright lights and a huge neon sign that read "Elysian Fields Hotel."

"Sam, we can't keep driving in this."

"No." Sam clenched his jaw. "Let's keep driving. This is too important to stop now."

Dean pulled off into the hotel parking lot. "No one's saying anything about stopping. But we need a break. Look at us. You're running on empty. I can't see more than five feet in front of me. We just nearly drove into a friggin' truck. Just one night off, Sam. One night."

Sam sighed and let his head drop back against the seat, knowing he had lost the fight.

.

Sam sat at a table at the hotel's buffet with a plate of food in front of him, feeling exhausted and miserable while Dean was having the time of his life. He was holding a slice of pie in each hand and grinning as if he'd just won the lottery. Which, in terms of finding a motel by happenstance, they actually sort of had: the furnishings were stylish and comfortable; the wall ornaments tasteful and expensive looking; the floors polished and impeccably cleaned; and they had only arrived at this place fifteen minutes ago and the accommodations were already out of this world. Sam watched Dean as he approached a random woman with a flirtatious smirk, no doubt looking to use her to stroke his ego. Maybe he'd ask for her phone number, or even her room number. And once he had it, he'd saunter away with a shit-eating grin over feeling validated about his ongoing fuckability to the opposite sex. It looked like it wasn't going so well though; after about 30 seconds, he walked away from her table with a sheepish grin and sat down at their table.

"Sam, unpucker, man. Eat something."

"We should hit the road, Dean."

"In this storm? I-it's-"

"It's biblical. Exactly. I-it's friggin' Noah's ark out there, and we're eating pie."

Dean leaned forward and stared intently into his eyes. "How many hours of sleep did you get this week? What? Three? Four?" In response, Sam shrugged because yeah, it was probably something like that. "Bobby's got his feelers out, okay? We have talked with every hoodoo man and root woman in 12 states."

Sam frowned at that. Yeah, he knew they had. Twelve states in seven days. They had talked to over three dozen people with a wide range of talents and magical abilities. And a fat lot of good it was doing them. Most of the ones who weren't fake knew something about the apocalypse, but didn't have the faintest idea of how to help them do something as big as ice the devil. Their attempts at "bringing the fight to the angels their way," as Dean had put it, wasn't exactly going very well. But Dean had put faith in him to find something, to beat the apocalypse together, and he couldn't fail Dean, not now, not when he and Dean were finally brothers again in a way they haven't been in years and now even so much more than that. He couldn't lose this again.

"Yeah, well, I'm not giving up."

Dean fixed him with an intense. angry stare, as if he'd just been accused of something. "Nobody's giving up." He paused, his lip trembled a little, and his stare went from angry to wide-eyed and earnest. "Especially me."

Dean's look said so much: _You think I don't know what's at stake here? It's you and me, Sam. Always, you and me. Together. No matter what and we're going to beat this or die trying. But I made this decision instead of saying 'yes' to Michael, and if we don't win, a lot of people are going to die. That's on my head._ Sam could feel his eyes getting wet and he looked away to keep Dean from seeing.

Dean saw Sam's demeanor change and his face visibly softened. His tone went from reprimanding to encouraging. "We're gonna find a way to beat the Devil, okay? Soon. I can feel it. And we will find Cas, we'll find Adam. But you are no good to me burnt out."

Sam stared into Dean's eyes for a moment of silent communication: _Are you saying I'm not strong enough?_

Dean's face fell, letting Sam see just how tired he felt. _No. Please, Sam. I'm begging you. It's not an indictment on either of us if we want to take a break to recharge our batteries for one night. Stay with me. Rest. For me._

Sam considered this for a moment and then nodded. He was being ridiculous. Dean was right; they needed to rest, if for no other reason so they could fight harder tomorrow. He shook his head to clear his mind and the tears still welling behind his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Dean grinned and looked around appreciatively at the motel's surprisingly swanky surroundings. "Come on, we've actually got the night off for once. Let's try to enjoy it."

Sam leaned back and let him sit and enjoy his pie, still feeling uneasy but he was going to give this to Dean. He didn't feel that he deserved the night off – after all, he had started this whole thing – but Dean was right about one thing: he was burning out, and fast. He needed, desperately, to get a win for the two of them. But biology also necessitated that he sleep, or he was going to be reduced to a hallucinating, babbling, incoherent mess. Dean ate his pie with relish, moaning around each bite in a way that made him think about that night they'd spent at Bobby's house a week ago. He quirked his brow at Dean's reaction and felt a little color rise into his cheeks at thinking about Dean wanting to moan for him so badly that he was biting his pillow to keep himself from making the noises he was now making in public. That satisfying but rushed quickie was the last time they'd had sex. Sam had been so laser focused on finding a way to beat the Devil and end the apocalypse that he hadn't had time to think about it much. Now he hungrily watched Dean's lips as they wrapped around his fork.

Dean licked his fork, then lifted his eyes to Sam and chuckled. "What d'ya say we head up to our room?" He smirked and waggled his eyebrows.

Sam felt heat creep up his neck and into his face and ears. He looked away, coughed, and then nodded. "Yeah, sure. Let's go."

They were on the top floor. As they approached the lobby, Dean exclaimed, "Look! An elevator!" as if he was an excited kid who had just been gifted it for Christmas.

Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise – they hadn't stayed at a place with an elevator in… well, ever. And this place was just fifty bucks a night, in the middle of nowhere Indiana. It was… weird. Really weird. He was still considering all this when the posh elevator opened and they walked across the flawless carpet and stepped in front of their room. Beside them, a couple was making out in front of what could only be their room. Dean pointed at them and grinned like someone had just told him a funny, dirty joke.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Oh, what are you, 12?"

Dean scoffed and said, "I'm young at heart," but then turned the key to their room and left the couple to finish undressing each other in the hallway.

They opened the door to their room. It filled with more stylish furniture, the same perfectly polished floors, and two very comfortable looking queen beds with satin sheets and chocolates on the pillows. The clerk at the front desk, Chad, had made some assumptions about them and hadn't asked if they wanted a king or two queens, but that wasn't what was disturbing Sam as he looked around the elegant room.

Dean whistled. "Wow. Look at this. We're like Rockefellers!" He threw his bag onto one of the beds. "Chocolates!" he shouted happily as he picked up one from one of the pillows. "Mm." Dean looked at him with a hopeful look on his face. "You want yours?"

"Knock yourself out."

Dean grabbed his chocolate and chuckled as if he'd just conned a schoolmate out of his milk money. Then he looked at the nightstand between the beds and picked up a small cardboard stand between them advertising the guest amenities.

"Whoa!" He held it up like it was a prize. "'Casa Erotica 13' on demand. What d'ya say we slip into one of these beds and order us a little pay-per-view for the night?"

He winked suggestively at Sam and gave him a thumbs up, but in response Sam scoffed.

"What?"

Sam shook his head. "Isn't this place... in the middle of nowhere?"

Dean shrugged. "So?"

"So what's a four-star hotel doing on a no-star highway?"

Dean cocked his head and he frowned, considering that for a second, but then they were interrupted by a woman's pleasurable moans on the other side of the wall, followed by a man's laugh. They both looked to the wall and then Dean turned back at Sam with a wide smirk and chuckled. Sam grinned uneasily, turned back to Dean, and scoffed.

"Well, they're having a good time," Dean remarked. "But I bet I can make you scream louder. How about it, Sammy? You wanna have ourselves a little contest?" Sam chuckled, looked down, feeling embarrassed, rubbed his back of his head, and shook his head 'no.' Dean took one step in Sam's direction. "What if I-"

Just then they heard a loud crash coming from the other room and something hit the wall with such force that it knocked the bricks out of place. The flatscreen television thumped against the wall and partially dismounted. Sam and Dean took one look at each other and then Dean dropped his chocolates and Casa Erotica advertisement and they quickly exited their room to investigate.

The couples' room was unlocked, dark, and empty.

"Hello?" Sam shouted.

Dean bent down, picked up an engagement ring and held it up. "Well, that can't be good."

Sam shook his head. "I knew it."

Dean sighed and frustratedly kicked the air. "C'mon! One night off. Is that really too much to ask?"

.

A few hours later, Sam and Dean were pulling back onto the highway, shagging ass away from the Elysian Fields Motel as quickly as possible. Behind them, a pile of dead Pagan gods laid in the hotel's hallway and ballroom; all those monsters who had held him and Sam hostage and tried to make appetizers of the other hotel guests were dead, save for the one sitting in their backseat, and two archangels were battling it out to the death. Dean just hoped Gabriel could keep Lucifer busy long enough for Dean to put a serious amount of distance between Lucifer and Sam. Kali sat with her arms crossed and pouting. Her posture was rigidly upright as if touching her back to the seat would contaminate her in some way.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Seat's clean, princess."

Kali's nostrils flared. "How dare you? I am a god. You're just a man."

"Yeah, well, in here, you're just a refugee from Lucifer, same as us."

From his view of her in his rearview mirror, Dean could tell Kali was still indignant but her expression changed to one of concern. "Can he win? Gabriel. Is there any chance he'll survive against Lucifer?"

Dean opened his mouth and then closed it, unsure of what to say, and then exchanged a quick glance with Sam. He thought about how Lucifer had just dispatched every Pagan god in his path with practically no more effort than a little flick of his wrist.

"Yeah, maybe," Sam piped up, using that compassionate voice he saved for people who he was about to lie to. "I mean, he is an archangel, same a Lucifer. They might be pretty evenly matched."

Kali bit her lip. "I threw everything at him." She shook her head. "Everything. And it didn't even leave a singe mark." Kali went quiet and then finally sunk into the seat and stared out the window.

Dean cleared his throat. "So, where you want us to drop you off?"

Kali scoffed scornfully at him. "I don't need you to take me anywhere; I have the power of flight."

"Alright, your highness," Dean sneered. "Then how 'bout you shazaam your ass out of here, just as soon as you break your little binding spell and give us back our blood."

Kali reached into her blouse and pulled out two vials of blood, which she held out in front of her and Sam accepted.

"I suppose we've all agreed to not kill each other for Gabriel's sake." Kali leaned forward in her seat. "If I see you again boys," she sneered and then raked her eyes down their bodies, "it'll be on a dinner plate." With that, she was gone.

Sam stared at the vials of blood in his hand and pruned up his face thoughtfully. "What the hell was that?"

Dean shook his head. "I guess Gabriel likes them hot, sophisticated, and buckets of crazy."

The two of them drove on until morning. Dean was beyond exhausted, but he didn't pull the car over until an hour or so before dawn, just outside the city limits of Madison, Wisconsin. They were about seven hours outside of Sioux Falls. Sam was already dosing in the passenger's seat and Dean leaned his head back against the seat and almost immediately dropped off to sleep.

.

The next morning, Sam was finally watching Casa Erotica 13 with Dean, but not in the way Dean would have hoped. The two of them were standing outside the car after stretching their legs from their long drive and nap and Dean had taken the DVD Gabriel had given him the night before out of his jacket and Sam had popped it into his laptop. The jacket was for Casa Erotica 13, but it was the last thing he'd actually expected would be inside.

As the camera panned lengthwise down the lithe body of a sexy blonde wearing only a lacy bra and panties, Sam looked up from the screen an expression as befuddled as Dean felt. "Gabriel wanted you to guard this with your life?"

Dean stared down at the DVD jacket and shook his head. "Maybe he's a fan. It is a good one."

Sam shook his head and Dean was about to suggest they hit the road and finish the movie later together when suddenly Gabriel entered the scene, dressed as a waiter and carrying a silver tray.

"I've got the kielbasa you ordered."

The woman's eyes lit up. "Ooh. Polish?"

"Hungarian." Gabriel threw the dish onto the mantle beside him, raced across the room to the woman, and began hungrily kissing and groping her. Sam's head reeled back in disgust and Dean's mouth dropped in shock.

"Is this..." Sam's question broke off, but he hadn't needed to finish it. Sam, it seemed, had never seen this one, but neither of them needed to have to know that Gabriel had never been part of the casting

Dean shook his head. "No."

Sam scrunched up his nose. "What the hell's going on?"

As if on cue, Gabriel turned to the camera, removed his mustache, and said, "Sam," in a way so direct that their eyes widened and they cast each other questioning glance. could Gabriel could actually see him through the laptop screen? "Dean. You're probably wondering what the hell is going on. Well, if you're watching this, I'm dead." Oh. Dean had assumed Gabriel's chances of beating Lucifer were slim, but… Suicide. The word popped into Dean's head. Tired of running, tired of hiding who he was. He'd stood up to Lucifer, knowing what was going to happen. Dean couldn't say he didn't relate to that, very recently as a matter of fact. "Oh please!" Gabriel went on with hardly a pause. "Stop sobbing, it's embarrassing for all of us. Without me, you've got zero shot at killing Lucifer, sorry! But you can trap him. The cage you sprung Lucifer from? It's still down there. And maybe, just maybe, you can shove his ass back in. Not that it'll be easy. You gotta get the cage open, trick my bro back into it. And uh, oh yeah, avoid Michael and the God Squad. But hey, details, right? And here's the big secret, Lucifer himself doesn't even know – the key to the cage? It's out there. Actually it's keys, plural. Four keys, well, four rings. From the Horsemen. You get 'em all, you got the cage. Can't say I'm betting on you boys. But, uh, hey! I've been wrong before. And Dean, you were right. I was afraid to stand up to my brother, not any more." Gabriel stood up. "So this is me, standing up." The woman in the film was biting Gabriel's ear and Gabriel grinned and turned to her. "And this is, me, lying down." Gabriel grabbed the woman, threw her onto the bed, and then reached down and unzipped his pants. Dean was so shocked at this new revelation that it wasn't until Gabriel's hard dick sprung free from his pants that he realized the rest of the film was just a porno, with him as the starring lead. Dean looked away.

"Oh! Uh, oh!" Sam flinched and groaned disgustedly. "Oh man!" He quickly closed his laptop.

Dean looked at Sam, feeling a twinge of hope for the first time in a long while. "Horsemen, huh? Well we got War's. We nicked Famine's. That's two down. Collect all four? All we need is Pestilence and Death."

Sam scoffed. "Oh, is that all?"

Dean shrugged. "It's a plan."

Sam nodded. Yeah, it was a plan. More than that, knowing this was their small win they needed. Okay, so Dean had no idea how they were going to overpower two more horseman, get Lucifer to the cage, and push him in, but, as Gabriel said, "Details, right?" They'd figure something out. At least now they had a plan to work on. Together. He and Sam climbed into the Impala and Dean drove away, the two of them headed to Bobby's.


	47. High Voltage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI - There is some needy bottom!Dean in this chapter.

Later that night, as Sam climbed into bed next to Dean on the freshly washed sheets of Bobby's guestroom, he was still feeling mildly disturbed thinking about watching the start of Gabriel's sex tape. Of course he was no prude, but he had hoped that, with the exception of Dean, he could have spent his entire lifetime without seeing the dick of another man he knew while it was in action. Even on the infrequent occasions when he watched porn, he often wasn't too jazzed about seeing dicks. Still, the information Gabriel had given them before he'd stripped naked was invaluable. He had no idea how they were going to overpower two more Horsemen to get their rings and then somehow get Lucifer to jump back into his cage, but at least Dean seemed hopeful about their chances and that was at least something.

As soon as Sam was in bed, Dean rolled over and began nuzzling and kissing his neck. He placed his warm hand on Sam's stomach, rucked up his t-shirt and began caressing the planes and curves of his torso, lovingly stroking his stomach muscles and gliding his fingers lengthwise along the thin scars he found there. Sam's breath hitched and his skin tingled under Dean's touch. Then his hands began travelling lower down his stomach and slipped under the elastic of his boxers. Sam was already half hard and then Dean's hand reached the base of his cock and he could feel it, too.

"Mm, Sammy," he growled into his ear.

Dean began fondling Sam's cock under his boxers. With his other hand, he turned Sam's face towards him and then caught his lips in a kiss. Sam turned onto his side to face his brother and kissed him back as the two halves of his brain warred with each other. He hadn't had sex or even jerked off in a week. What's more, he and Dean hadn't had sex regularly in months and his cock was very appreciative of the attention it was receiving. His fingers tingled, wanting to touch his brother in return, to give him as good as he was getting, and more: he wanted to suck Dean off, for Dean to look up at him while he had those pretty lips wrapped around his cock, to fuck each other into oblivion on and over every piece of furniture in the room. But after the last time they had spent the night…

"Bobby," he whispered.

Dean shrugged. "We can be quiet. Like last time."

Dean went in for another kiss, but Sam pulled away. His face twitched. They were quiet… or so he'd thought, until the next morning when he'd come down the stairs and Bobby was barely looking at him, his dark purple, bruised eyes mostly staring down at his coffee cup throughout the morning. Bobby hadn't wanted to talk about it – none of them wanted to talk about it – but something had kept him awake.

Dean stopped stroking him, but kept his hand firmly wrapped around his cock. "If it makes you feel better," he said, as if reading his mind, "I went downstairs for a glass of water while you were in the shower and Bobby popped in a set of earplugs before taking his siesta."

Sam groaned. "Ugh. Dude!"

There was only one mortifying reason he could think of for Bobby feeling that he needed hearing protection while they were staying the night. It was one thing for Bobby to suspect them of having sex with each other in his guestroom, but a whole other thing entirely to hear them having sex and then feel like he had to pretend he didn't the next day, which, it was definitely sounding like, was what had happened last week.

"That might actually make it worse."

Dean cocked his head to the side and looked contemplative for a brief moment until all the implications of what Sam said finally hit him and then his eyes went wide and he yanked his hand out of Sam's boxers. "Oh." He glanced down and then back up and shrugged, his face twisted into an unconvincing half smile. "Well, we don't know – uh, maybe..."

He paused and his eyes repeatedly darted left to right, clearly looking for some other logical explanation and failing.

"Yeah, I think we do."

Dean's face dropped. He ran a hand down his face and then turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, looking supremely embarrassed. "Son of a bitch."

Sam rolled over onto his back and took a deep breath. "Yeah."

Finally after a couple minutes of silence, Dean twisted around and turned off the light on the nightstand. "Night, Sam."

"Night, Dean."

.

The next morning, Sam awoke abruptly to the sound of a chainsaw buzzing right by his ears. Dean's body shot straight out of bed and then he was on his feet, a nearly naked figure clad only in green boxers and a thin white t-shirt, his hand tightly wrapped around his gun. Sam, for his part, was sitting straight up in bed and clutching the knife he kept under the frame. It was a second before they realized the sound was coming from right outside their room; a couple of utility workers were shearing off tree branches near the utility lines. Dean lowered his gun with a look of embarrassment and then scrubbed a hand down his face.

"For fuck's sake."

Sam squinted at the clock. "Why would they be out here at 6 AM?"

From downstairs, they heard Bobby holler. "Goddammit!"

Sam and Dean gave each other alarmed, wide-eyed stares and then, still holding their gun and knife, they bolted downstairs. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw Bobby, still lying on his daybed and yelling out the window.

"Don't make me get my gun!"

Sam's eyed darted to the window and he saw a couple of the utility workers had stopped working only to wave their chainsaws at him from where they stood in their cherry-pickers and then kept working. Sam furrowed his brows together in concern

"Bobby?" Sam asked, "Uh, what are you doing?"

Bobby sat up in bed. "Those bastards have been coming out here off an on for the better part of two weeks now, always at some ungodly hour, best I can tell just sawing off one log at a time and then leaving. Haven't gotten hardly any sleep since. Hoped these earplugs would do the trick, but," he took the earplugs out and threw them onto the floor. "No dice."

Sam felt his face twitching as he tried very hard to hide the relieved grin threatening to take over his face. "This has been going on for two weeks?"

Bobby rubbed his eyes, which had dark, purple bags under them. "Yeah, almost. Every other damn day, it feels like. Gonna call the Public Works department again after breakfast." He shook his head. "Speaking of which, could you two run into town after breakfast? I need a few things."

Dean nodded. "Sounds good. Sam and I need to pick up supplies anyway. What you need?"

"Uh." Bobby scrubbed a hand over his face and quickly shook his head, as if trying to jostle his brain awake. "Bacon. And toilet paper. And I'm out of sage." He wheeled himself to his kitchen, opened his utensil drawer and pulled out the false bottom. "Dragon's breath, too."

"Great," Sam broke in, "We'll just head a couple of towns over."

Bobby cocked an eyebrow. "What for?"

Sam grinned uncertainly and scoffed. "Um… we were shot here? Police probably on high alert? Any of this ringing a bell?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Oh, that." He waved dismissively. "Probably should've told you. I took care of that."

Dean's mouth formed an "o" and he shot a confused look from Sam over to Bobby. "Wha – how – you 'took care of it'?"

"Remember Sheriff Mills? Went and had a little chat with her after I found out you two were actually alive." Bobby paused and narrowed his eyes at them for a moment in a reprimand for letting him sweat it out for a few hours of uncertainty that day, but then continued on. "She went to the crime scene herself, did her own investigation. It was fake blood, just a bunch of kids who broke into the motel room trying to scare the bejesus out of the staff."

Sam stared at Bobby incredulously and blinked. "She faked a DNA test?"

Bobby gave them a lopsided smile. "After the zombies, reckon she thought she owed us all a favor."

.

A little over an hour later after they'd finished breakfast, Sam and Dean climbed into the Impala, leaving Bobby behind. The older man watched them drive away and then wheeled himself to his study, pulled out his cell phone, and angrily dialed a number.

"Is this the Department of Public Works? This is Bobby Singer – yes, I'm calling again! You dicks keep sending your maintenance crew out at six in the morn – No, that's not ample time! Well then I'm giving you ample time to prepare before I put my foot in your ass. I've already got a couple staying in my guest room overnight keeping me up by going at it like two rabbits who just broke out of prison, and you're telling me you got to send your crew out at first light? Well, screw you too." He forcefully hit the "End Call" button, dropped the phone into his lap, and scowled.

.

Dean grinned at Sam as they drove down 11th Street, headed towards the shops at the center of town. Sam shot him a broad, toothy, open-mouthed smile and then burst out into a laughing fit so hard his shoulders heaved. Dean looked ahead at the windshield and shook his head.

"Utility workers."

Sam chuckled. "Yeah."

"You know what this means, right?"

"What?"

Dean shot him a lecherous smirk and waggled his eyebrows. "Later tonight…" He removed his hand from the steering wheel and rested it on Sam's crotch. "I'm gonna make you come so hard, you won't want to move for a week."

Still grinning, Sam looked down at Dean's hand and nodded. "Sounds good. But…"

Dean shifted his eyes from the windshield to Sam. "But what?"

"Why wait?"

Dean's eyes widened and his jaw dropped a little, but he recovered quickly and his face broke out into a grin. Sam could be such a slut sometimes. How did he ever go without this before?

"The usual place?" he asked.

There was a little park nearby, more really of a wooded area with a small field overlooking the water and a short pier on the end of it. He and Sam had liked to go there since they were kids to be alone. The place was pretty isolated and the pier had started to rot in recent years from neglect, but sometimes they liked to sit on the pier, drink soda or beer, and talk. At night, it was also a great place for stargazing. They'd never gone there for this before, but it felt like an appropriate, and perhaps even inevitable, next step.

Sam licked his lips. "Yeah."

Dean grinned and turned right at the next road to take them away from town. After about twenty minutes and several turns, they finally reached the spot where the broken asphalt turned to a worn dirt path. Dean turned onto it and drove the car a few hundred yards away from the road, until they eventually neared a clearing with a clear view of the lake. This time though, he was careful to stop just before they hit the clearing, so the car was well shaded on the dirt path around a dense coverage of trees.

As soon as Dean had the car in park and the ignition switched off, Sam was practically on top of him, his hands pushing against his chest and holding him in place against the seat, and his mouth pressed up against his so hard that the back of his head banged against the seat's backrest. Sam often got needy and rough like this when they hadn't had sex in a while. He had no idea how Sam had had the self-control to not jump him last night. Sam hungrily ran his hands down Dean's shirt front and then slipped them underneath, pushing Dean's shirt upwards as his hands massaged Dean's muscular stomach and chest and then impatiently grabbed his sides.

Sam lifted himself up and moved to get between Dean's legs, except the steering wheel was getting in his way. Dean scooted over a little to the right to give Sam enough room and then spread his legs. He was rewarded with an appreciative grin before Sam shoved himself between Dean's legs and then gruffly grabbed his face kissed him hard. As much as this wasn't Dean's usual style, he loved Sam's enthusiasm and he closed his eyes and kissed Sam back with matching urgency, then hooked his arms underneath Sam's so that he was grabbing his shoulders and pulling him in closer. As they kissed, Sam's fingertips were on the back of Dean's neck while his thumbs massaged his jaw. Then he reached over to the seat lever with one of those freakishly long arms of his and Dean heard a click and then felt himself fall backwards and then Sam was enthusiastically rutting up against him and moaning into his mouth.

"Mm, Sammy."

Moaning, Dean bucked his hips in time with Sam's movements and then slapped him on the ass. Sam stopped rutting against him and pulled away to start undoing the buttons on Dean's shirt. Dean reached out to do the same to Sam, but instead Sam easily caught his wrists in one of his massive palms and held them over his head, then ducked down to give Dean a nip on the neck hard enough that Dean made a pained little grunt.

With his face still buried in Dean's neck, Sam whispered, "is this okay?"

"Yeah."

His voice came out deep and rough and was barely above a whisper, but Sam clearly heard him; in the next moment he was hastily undoing Dean's shirt buttons one-handedly while still holding Dean's arms above his head with the other. Dean felt Sam's hot breath against his ear and then felt teeth roughly graze and then bite down on his earlobe, just enough to sting a little. He heard Sam growl and felt a dull ache in his wrists from how tightly they were being held. Sam's hot, impossibly hard erection was pressing against his own where Sam was still between his legs, pinning him down in almost every way possible. He closed his eyes, let out a half-moan, half- sigh, and turned his head to give Sam more access to his neck.

Sam's eager manhandling made Dean think back to the last and only other time Sam had gotten a little rough with him during sex, when Sam had eagerly and aggressively fucked him against and on the hood of the car. It was so hot. He felt a shiver just thinking about it. Before Sam, Dean had never made love like this – he'd taken his time, touched his partners gently, lead the experience, laid on the bottom to watch them ride him, let his orgasm slowly build. Dean never thought he'd enjoy this rough urgency or like to feel a little scared while having sex, but maybe he only enjoyed this now because it was sex with Sam. Not being in control, being completely open and vulnerable and at the mercy of someone else, yeah, that was scary; so scary that he couldn't see himself doing it with anyone else. But Sam had unlocked something inside him – that part of him that sometimes just really wanted to let go of that heavy burden he felt of needing to always be in charge, and just submit and enjoy the ride. And Sam was more than happy to take that control and run with it. He wondered just how far Sam would like to go with it. In that moment, he imagined himself tied to a bed blindfolded and handcuffed while Sam teased, tortured, and fucked him raw until he came like a rocket under Sam's touch. Just the thought of it had him moaning. Fuck, he never even realized he would want such a thing, but as Sam impatiently grabbed, kissed, and bit him, he realized he liked this a lot more than he ever realized he could.

Sam finally finished with the buttons of Dean's shirt and then let go of Dean's wrists, then impatiently pushed Dean's t-shirt up and lowered himself until he was almost on his knees so he could kiss and nibble Dean's chest. He stopped to linger over his right pec, where he sucked hard enough on the skin that Dean just knew he'd have a bruise later. He was willing to bet Sam did that on purpose, that he was the kind of guy who would like to see his lover display his marks on them later; Sam always was a little possessive. Dean grabbed the sides of Sam's head and moaned, enjoying the pleasurable feeling of Sam's soft lips mixed with the little bit of pain from his mouth. Yours, Sam. I'm all yours. Dean slipped off his rucked up t-shirt and while doing so Sam's mouth slipped over his nipple and he felt teeth graze him just a little too hard. Instinctively, he reached down and grabbed Sam under the arms and hauled him up. Sam came along willingly and sat down on the bench seat beside Dean. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright and glazed over in lust, but he looked embarrassed.

"Sorry, got a little too caught up in the moment, I guess. Did I hurt you?"

Dean almost immediately regretted stopping Sam. He smiled and appreciatively eyed his fucked-out brother. "Only in a good way."

Sam made an unintelligible sound from the back of this throat and in an instant he was back on top of Dean, pushing him down to lay onto the seat and then Sam crawled between his legs and undid Dean's button and zipper. Dean helped him pull them down and then Sam was hastily taking off his own pants.

Once they were completely naked, Sam opened the glove compartment and pulled out a small bottle of lube. Dean cocked an eyebrow in interest and Sam's cheeks went a light shade of red.

"Brought it out from our bag after breakfast," he explained. "I didn't know, but… wanted to be prepared."

Dean grinned and chuckled. "You're like a boy scout."

"Shut-up."

Sam handed Dean the bottle and then put a knee down onto the seat, motioning for Dean to swing his legs off the seat and sit up so Sam could get down on his hands and knees in front of him, ready to be prepped. Instead, Dean motioned for him to sit. Looking confused, Sam did as asked and then Dean climbed over him to straddle his lap and, in case there were any other questions, he grabbed Sam's cock and dragged it between his ass cheeks, then positioned it over his entrance and bounced himself up and down on it, just teasingly letting the cock head push against his tight entrance.

"Dean?" Sam gave him a wide-eyed, disbelieving stare.

Dean let go of Sam's cock and then popped the top off the lube, squirted a fair amount onto two of his fingers, and pushed one inside himself. His moved his hips up and down on the finger the way he imagined himself shortly doing on Sam's cock. Below him, he felt Sam shudder slightly.

"Are you sure?" Sam's expression was still unsure and earnest, even if his voice was deeper than usual and dripping with arousal. "You don't – we don't have to do it this way."

Dean gave him a reassuring kiss and then added the second finger. "I know. It's okay, Sammy. I like it."

"Oh fuck." Sam gave him a hard, punishing kiss.

Sam watched with heavily lidded eyes as Dean bounced up and down on his own fingers, fucking himself open for him. Dean loved seeing the way Sam looked at him: he could see how badly Sam wanted this, and how happy he was that Dean was giving it to him. And, God help him, he wanted it, too, so badly. Even after everything, Dean still felt embarrassed just flat out admitting that he liked to bottom. He knew intellectually that there was nothing wrong with it and it didn't make him any less manly, but that didn't change the way he felt about it. That little, self-deprecating voice in his head had never gone away but by now, he had largely been able to tell it to fuck off and, after the drama with Walt and Roy and the fallout afterwards, he almost combatively didn't give a shit about what other people thought. Still, he knew he never would have admitted it before. He would never admit it again to anyone else. But Sam would never throw this, whatever it was they did, in his face. He would never make him feel bad about it and, by the eager look in Sam's eyes and the way his hard cock kept poking him on his ass cheek, Dean could tell he had just made him a very happy man. In the end, that was all that mattered.

Dean felt his fingers being squeezed by the tight walls of his ass and he knew he wasn't quite prepped enough to not feel any pain and he felt a shiver of anticipatory excitement. If Sam was prepping him, he would have insisted on adding more lube, adding a third finger, and going on a little longer until Dean felt looser. And that was part of the reason why he'd decided to prep himself, although seeing Sam's lustful, almost crazed expression as he watched and clearly enjoyed the show certainly wasn't bad, either. He squeezed some lube into the palm of this hand and ran it up and down Sam's taught shaft, then held it in place as he slowly lowered himself down onto it.

As the head popped past the first ring of muscle, Sam's mouth fell open in a silent moan and his eyes fluttered and closed. "Shit."

To say it was uncomfortable would be an understatement; it felt like Sam was splitting him in two. He quickly buried his face in Sam's neck so he wouldn't see the pained expression he knew he was making and then gasped. Unconsciously, Sam bucked his hips up slightly, driving himself another slick inch inside and moaned and then Dean couldn't stop the pained groan that escaped him. He hoped Sam hadn't heard over the sound of his own heavy breathing and gasps of pleasure but then Sam froze.

"Sorry! Sorry." He softly placed a hand on his back. "You okay?"

"Peachy."

Sam rubbed a hand up and down Dean's back but other than that remained still as Dean continued to lower himself. Once he was all the way seated, he stayed still for a moment, just enjoying the feeling of Sam filling him up so completely. Sam was huge and in a way Dean felt proud of that. Then slowly he lifted himself up a couple of inches then lowered himself back down, testing the feeling. Sam let out a shaky breath, but made no attempts to move. There was some pain, but if anything it only heightened his sense of pleasure. He began slowly bouncing up and down on Sam's cock. His own cock rubbed against Sam's stomach as he moved and filling him with delicious pleasure from both sides. He moaned and leaned into it, reveling in the feeling of his cock running along the hard valleys and planes of Sam's stomach.

Sam groaned in pleasure and his grip tightened on Dean's back for a second before reaching up and grabbing him by his hair. Dean felt his head being pulled back by the hair and then Sam was kissing, sucking, and licking his neck in between pants and breathy moans. Dean picked up the pace and also pulling out further and pushing downward on Sam's cock harder, finding a pleasurable rhythm. He liked having his hair pulled but quickly grew restless and tangled his own hands in Sam's long locks, pulling his hair likewise to get Sam to tilt his face up so they could kiss. Sam let out an exceptionally loud moan and Dean realized Sam must be into that, too. He mentally marked that down for later. Sam's eyes were glazed over with lust and he began steadily moving his hips matching Dean's thrusts. Dean angled his thrusts a little to the left and then the right, looking for that magic button inside him that he couldn't believe he'd neglected to play with for the first thirty-one years of his life before Sam. When he found it, he felt himself shutter and he let go of Sam and grabbed the back of the seat to steady himself.

"Jesus, Sam."

Dean began moving even faster, moving at a punishing pace. Sam felt impossibly hard and large inside him and he was hitting his sweet spot with every thrust. Dean's cock was leaking heavily against Sam's stomach and Dean kept riding Sam until the entire outside world began to fall away and it was just him and Sam filling him up so good and -

"Fuck, Sam, oh fuck, yes, yes, yes -"

His orgasm hit him with such ferocious intensity that he could feel his entire body shaking and black spots appeared in his vision. It felt like every ounce of strength in his body was being channeled into and shot through his penis. Panting, Dean collapsed onto Sam and his thrusts became more shallow and sluggish as he rode out the rest of his orgasm. It took several seconds before his mind cleared enough to even notice the hot, sticky mess he had created between them. Sam was gripping his arms tightly and he was shaking too as he bucked his hips in shallow thrusts, matching Dean's.

"I'm so close," he whispered.

Dean pulled his head and torso back so he could look at Sam's face and stopped bouncing on his cock. In return, Sam gave him a questioning look.

"Use me," Dean commanded.

"Oh, God!"

Sam grabbed Dean's hips and began thrusting up and pumping into him in earnest. He wasn't gentle or even careful as he moved with frenzied motions, chasing his orgasm. He was fucking Dean raw just as asked, and Dean loved it. He was taking care of Sam, letting Sam use him as he needed to get whatever he wanted out of him and just thinking about that gave him such an intense feeling of pleasure that his moans matched Sam's and his spent cock twitched in interest. Sam's eyes were shut and his mouth was open as he panted.

"Oh my God Dean!" Then he opened his eyes and looked at Dean's face. "Thank you – God – thank you!"

Sam threw his head back and screwed his eyes tightly shut and Dean felt the familiar, hot, wet feeling of Sam's come filling him. Sam's hips moved in a few more jerky, aborted thrusts as he finished. Dean leaned in and rested his head on Sam's collar bone and they stayed there for several moments longer until Sam shifted and his cock slipped out of Dean's sticky, overworked hole. Dean groaned and then began feeling around for his boxers. He grabbed them from off the seat, climbed off of Sam, and put them on. Sam was still too fucked out to move for several moments, but by the time Dean was sliding his jeans back over his ass, Sam was blindly reaching out for his t-shirt. He groaned, scrubbed a hand over his face, sat up straight, and opened his eyes.

"Think we should head back?"

Dean suppressed a wince from the ache he felt as he sat back down in the driver's side seat and then shrugged, trying to look casual. "Nah. Let's stay here for a little while longer. There's beer in the trunk."

Sam slipped his shirt over his head and nodded. "Sounds good."

The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon laying beside each other on the hood of the Impala, drinking beer, and staring off at the trees and sky while the sun rose and then eventually began sinking into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N - I've been focusing on bottom!Dean for the last few chapters and his thoughts about bottoming to convey Dean's feelings about vulnerability and the level to which he is allowing himself to open up to Sam and show himself emotionally bare. This openness is being emphasized physically because Dean is a very physical person and also a person who has hang-ups about showing some of his softer sides. In case there is any confusion, this doesn't mean Dean is now a bottom only; Sam and Dean will continue to switch back and forth, as they always have.


	48. Whisky Bent and Hell Bound

The very next day and for the next few days afterwards, Sam and Dean returned to their spot by the lake. They didn't stay as long as they had the first time – after all, they had calls to make and research to do to track down Pestilence and Death – but it was nice having someplace private where they didn't have to muffle their moans into pillows or bite their fists to keep from being heard. As they sat by the lake fooling around in the Impala the day after their first enthusiastic encounter there, Sam's demeanor was totally different: he touched Dean shyly, kissed him tentatively, and kept shooting him the odd anxious glance. Dean was wondering what was up until Sam was unbuttoning his shirt and then asked, "Yesterday, was that… okay for you?"

Oh. Dean could understand Sam's self-consciousness; after all, he had freaked out pretty epicly after the last time Sam had slung him around a little bit during sex. Dean nodded. "Yeah, Sammy. Better than okay."

"Yeah?"

"Really."

Sam's smile widened a little too much, his eyes looked too hopeful and then Dean quickly amended his statement. "I mean – it's a nice change every once in a while."

The sex they had that day and in the days following was mostly gentle and slow, like Dean usually preferred. Sam still deferred to him as to who would top and Dean was relieved at the normalcy of it all when he tried to top and Sam didn't argue. He'd let out this hidden side of himself – the Dean that liked to be bossed around and taken – but Sam had no expectations of him because of it and his sharing it changed nothing about their relationship. At the end of the day it was still Dean who led, he was still in control, and Sam trusted him to be the leader and make the right calls. And knowing that made him feel safe and in control of this thing with Sam, too – Sam, the biter; the control freak; the bossy top who liked to grab and take and manhandle – which, of course, was fucking hot but not always something he felt like he could handle. And, of course, Sam probably already knew that. On the fourth day at their spot though, as Dean put back on his boxers and squirmed in his seat, trying to find a comfortable position while Sam's come dribbled out of his ass, he thought he could really get used to this switching back and forth more often. Life was so much easier once he'd stopped pretending he didn't want or need this and he and Sam could just be themselves.

When they weren't at their spot, Sam and Dean spent their mealtimes with Bobby sitting at his kitchen table with their laptops open while they scoured the Internet for suspicious deaths or omens, or hanging around the study until late at night and sometimes into morning reading through any of Bobby's many ancient tomes. Their situation was dire – when the hell wasn't it? - but strangely calm. Bobby was still wearing his earplugs at night, but it had been four days since the utility workers had last come to the house and Dean took that as a good sign: Bobby was finally getting a good night's sleep – hell, they all were – under the same roof, knowing they were all safe. They were still finding jack on Pestilence or Death and Castiel was still missing and not answering his phone, but he was sure they'd get a break soon – after all, Horsemen weren't exactly known for keeping a low profile and Castiel was an all-powerful being – shit, he had been through a hell of a lot more than whatever he'd done to himself back in that warehouse, he was sure. He'd be okay. Or at least, that was what Dean kept telling himself.

On the fifth day, when he and Sam got home, three hours after they left Bobby's house for a "quick" supply run, Bobby was sitting in his library drinking whiskey from a mug and poring over a pile of books. As soon as the door slammed behind them and they entered the study, Bobby scowled at them impatiently.

"Where the hell you two been? I've been trying to get a hold of you."

Sam smiled apologetically. "Yeah, sorry Bobby. Guess we must have lost service where we were. What's up?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "I think I got a lead on Pestilence is what's up."

Dean's eyes widened and he cocked his head in interest. "Pestilence? Like the Horseman?"

"Is there any other kind? Got a call from a hunter out in California. Whole town of Oroville went from healthy to sick in a day. Nearly every resident has swine flu. And a few days before it happened, the whole area lit up with demon signs like a friggin' tidalwave: electrical storms, cattle deaths, you name it."

Dean raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Swine flu, huh? Seems a little weak for something that can just conjure up the Croatoan virus whenever he wants."

"Yeah, well, be that as it may, I think you two better saddle up and hit the road. I got a feeling Pestilence is there, now."

.

A week later, Sam and Dean had chased Pestilence through California and into western Nevada and they were still eating his dust. Pestilence was leaving a sloppy, mucus-filled trail of swine flu behind him, but he was somehow also difficult to track – he wasn't travelling down any one highway or following a pattern that they could see, so they had no idea what town he was going to hit next. And, as Dean and Sam sped down the dark, wet highway, away from the latest town hit with swine flu and looking for a lead, Bobby wasn't much help, either. Dean wasn't sure what he hoped Bobby would have, but 'head east' while they were in western Nevada definitely wasn't it.

Sam hit the "end call" button and sighed. Dean understood the sentiment: they had no idea where they were driving to, but even if they did, Pestilence had at least a day and a half head start. He clenched his jaw and resigned himself to another day's drive just to see another town with the sniffles, when suddenly a voice in a familiar English accent chirped out, "I've got an idea."

Crowley. Fuck. Dean slammed on his breaks, sending the Impala fishtailing down the rain slicked street. The last time they'd crossed paths with this demon, he'd conned them into going on a crazy suicide mission to bring Sam straight to Lucifer. In the days following that mission, as he laid in a hospital bed recovering from his many injuries and grieving Ellen and Jo, he had fantasized about little else besides ways he'd like to kill this sonovabitch. Quickly, Sam grabbed his demon knife from the waistband of his jeans, whipped around in his seat, and stabbed. Dean heard the knife slice through the backseat's cushion.

"Did you get him?"

"He's gone!" Sam angrily barked.

Dean had no idea why the thing was there or how he found them, but Crowley definitely hadn't taken the trouble to track them down just to pop into their backseat and yell "boo!" He looked around frantically for the next place it was going to pop up. He didn't need to look long. Someone – or something – rapped sharply on Sam's window, and they both turned to see Crowley standing beside the Impala smiling at them.

"Fancy a fag and a chat?"

Dean narrowed his eyes and reached for the door handle. As he and Sam exited the Impala, the demon's smile faded and he began backing away.

"You're upset. We should discuss it. Not here, but –"

Sam took several menacing steps forward into Crowley's space. "You want to talk? After what you did to us?"

Crowley oddly looked surprised and a little indignant. "After what I – what I did to you?" I gave you the Colt!"

"Yeah," Sam shouted while waving around the demon blade in his hand, "and you knew it wouldn't work against the Devil!"

Crowley's mouth dropped open, appearing genuinely shock, but Dean couldn't rule out that he was just playing it up. "I never!"

"You set us up," Sam continued, clearly having become even angrier at Crowley's scandalized look. "We lost people on that suicide run – Good people!"

The demon rolled his eyes. "Who you take on the ride is your own business!"

As Sam's face went from furious to shocked and then to impossibly more furious, Dean eyed up the demon contemplatively. At least the thing wasn't pretending to give a crap about the hunters they lost. He hated when demons pretended to have empathy. There was something… refreshingly honest about his dick answer.

"Look," Crowley went on, eyeing Sam's blade before switching his attention over to Dean and flashing him a toothy grin. "Everything is still the same. W-we're all still in this together."

Dean couldn't believe it but, despite everything he'd thought since their failed attempt to gank the Devil, Dean thought he was actually telling the truth. Crowley was playing at some game, of that much he was sure, but the game wasn't pretending he wanted the Devil dead. Crowley was a crossroads demon, so best Dean could guess if he was coming to them and sticking around even after they tried to gank him, this thing either needed their help or wanted to make a deal. Maybe both.

Sam seethed. "Sure we are."

Sam took a step forward and swung wildly with the blade in Crowley's direction, but the demon was once again too fast and all Sam sliced was air. Crowley reappeared, standing facing Sam's back and then he turned to Dean.

"Call your dog off. Please."

Sam moved to go after him again, but Dean deftly grabbed Sam by the elbow and held him back. He and Sam were carrying around demon and angel proof hexbags; Crowley had to have gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to track them down. Whatever it was this thing wanted was going to be good and he, for one, was curious. Sam shot him an incredulous look, but at seeing Dean's curious face, turned towards Crowley with a fixed disdainful stare.

Dean pointed at Crowley. "Give me one good reason."

Crowley stood up straight and raised himself on his toes. "I can give you Pestilence."

"What do you know about Pestilence?" Dean asked.

Crowley smiled, glad to have provided a suitable hook. "I know how to get him. That's got your interest, doesn't it?"

Sam, who had up until this point been standing quietly next to Dean turned towards him with a smirk and Dean saw him shake the demon blade a little in his hand. Sam, clearly, was excited to gank this thing. And Dean definitely understood the feeling and he never worked with demons, but if this thing had a way to get to Pestilence, well, hell, it felt like Hail Mary time.

At seeing Dean's contemplative look, Sam's face changed to one of shock and outrage. "Are you actually listening to this?

Dean held up a finger to his brother and turned towards Crowley. "Sam -"

"Are you friggin' nuts!"

It wasn't a question so much as an angry exclamation. Dean knew he was thinking about Ruby. The problem was, this was different. It was impossible for him to explain to Sam how, and even if he could Sam was too angry to listen.

"Shut up for a second, Sam!" Dean barked.

"Shut up, the both of you!" Both he and Sam turned towards Crowley, too surprised at the demon's sudden exasperated outburst to keep arguing. "Look..." Crowley tried to get his voice back under control. I swear," he said in a calmer, cajoling tone. "I thought the colt would work. It's an honest mistake. It's all part of the learning process. But nothing's changed. I still want the devil dead. Well...one thing's changed. Now the devil knows that I want him dead. Which, by the way, makes me the most buggered son in all of creation."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Holy crap. We don't care."

"They burnt down my house!" Crowley shouted in outrage, but Dean rolled his eyes again. It wasn't even his house; it was that poor meatsuit's he was riding. "They ate my tailor!" Dean raised his eyes to the sky. Okay, that one was pretty bad. "Two months under a rock, like a bloody salamander!" Crowley kept shouting, his voice getting louder and angrier with every word. "Every demon on hell and earth's got his eyes out for me! And yet... Here I am...Last place I should be – In the road, talking to Sam and Dean Winchester, under a friggin' spotlight!" Crowley gestured to the streetlight above them and the bulb exploded, sending shards of glass and bulb flying and Dean jumped. One thing he could definitely say about this thing was that it had a flair for the dramatic. Blowing up the streetlight appeared to have drained Crowley of his anger and he straightened his shoulders, looking embarrassed. He sighed and then looked down touched his thumb and forefinger to his lips in thought. When he looked back up at them, his face was earnest and pleading. "So come with me." He shot an irritated look at Sam and added, "Please."

Dean hesitated. He wanted Pestilence, but he certainly didn't want to go anywhere with a demon. And, wanting the Devil dead or not, there was still a chance he would screw them over; he was a demon after all. Beside him, Sam seemed to have set aside his anger enough to also be weighing the situation; he wasn't moving towards Crowley to go with him, but he also wasn't trying to stab him for a change, either.

Crowley sighed. "Do you want the Horsemen rings or not?" Dean and Sam gaped at Crowley in shock. How did he know? Not even friggin' Lucifer knew! "Yes, I know all about that. Shall we?"

.

Half an hour later. Sam, Dean, and Crowley pulled up to an old, weathered, wooden house – well, Dean was pretty sure it used to be a house at least. But now it stood dark and desolate with broken windows and cracks in the wooden siding so deep that in places he could see inside. He couldn't imagine Crowley, the same demon whose base camp had once been a mansion, staying here. He parked in the driveway and then the three of them stepped inside. The inside was somehow, seemingly impossibly, worse than the outside – broken glass littered the floor, molding, broken furniture took up the center of the room, and the floorboards squished underneath his feet, feeling about to break at any moment.

Crowley sighed. "Here we are. My life on the lam. How the mighty have fallen. Single-pane glass, Used contraception in the fireplace." He held out his hand in front of the fireplace and the old, waterlogged wood began to burn. Dean blinked in surprise and then Crowley turned to him with a self-pitying, morose look. "The water damage alone -"

Dean's face went hard. "My heart's bleeding for you. Now, how do you know about the rings?"

Crowley gave them a smug smile. "Well, now...I've been keeping a close eye on you lot."

"We got hex bags," Sam spat, his voice and face filled with disgust. "We're hidden from demons."

Despite Sam's demeanor and the fact that clearly all he wanted to do right then was shiv Crowley's ass, the demon's demeanor didn't change. If anything, his smile only grew wider. "All but one. That night you broke into my house, our first date, my valet hid a tracking device in your car - A magical coin that easily trumps your little bags o' bones. It allows me to hear things, too -" The demon flashed them a lecherous smirk and Dean cocked his head as the full implications of that statement sunk in. Beside him, Sam's face was twisted into a mask of fury, but Crowley, clearly enjoying himself, actually sniggered. "And, _my_ ," he added, "the things I've _heard_." The demon smiled wide enough to show all his teeth.

"That's not -" Dean closed his eyes and sucked air through his teeth. "Well, fuck."

"Indeed. Fascinating stuff, boys. Who would have guessed that Squirrel here prefers to take it up the jacksie?"

"We switch."

He said it before he could even think about it, before he could even process the words and what they meant. Crowley's eyes lit up in even greater amusement and Dean instantly wished he could snatch those last two words out of the air and shove them back into his mouth.

Crowley chuckled in response. "So I heard. Moose is quite the vocal bottom. Bossy, too. But who doesn't appreciate that? I certainly did."

Dean narrowed his eyes and gave Crowley an angry smirk. "So what is this? You're trying to blackmail us with some magical sex tape? Well, hate to break it to ya, but Sam and me – we're not exactly a secret. So no one's gonna care about your little recording, or whatever it is you have."

Crowley chuckled. "Oh, I heartily disagree. For the pair of you? Even with just audio, I could sell it and become a rich man. I'll bet I could even get a couple of souls out of it." Dean just continued to glower at Crowley and after a second the demon's smile faded and he waved his hand dismissively. "Please." He fixed his stare on Dean. "Paris." Then he switched his gaze over to Sam. "Nicole." Sam's jaw clenched in rage, but he remained silent. "Your fifteen minutes of fame are up, loves. I am well aware everyone already knows about you two lot. Listening in on that was a fun way to spend an afternoon, but…" He paused, as if he were mentally replaying the audio from their car sex scenes with serious consideration. "Anyway, that's not my angle. Not today. On the contrary, I'm here to help. So you want to cram the devil back in the box? Cunning scheme. I want in."

Half an hour later, Sam stood on the front porch and watched as Crowley threw open the Impala's passenger side door and sat in his seat. He flashed Sam one last, vicious smile and then Dean gunned the gas and the two of them sped away from him. Sam wanted to chase after the Impala, drag the demon out of the car, and stab him right in the face but instead he stood in place shaking with rage and watching the Impala's taillights vanish in the distance. Once he could no longer hear the rumble of Impala's engine, he turned away and marched back into the ramshackle house.

The living room area, like the rest of the house, was in shambles: broken furniture littered the rotting wooden floor, which itself was covered in a quarter inch thick layer of dust, only broken here and there by small, rodent footprints. Nearly ever window was broken and then partially boarded up with haphazardly placed wooden boards. Sam picked up a broken, tipped over chair and flung it against the wall, sending splintered wood flying in all directions. He couldn't believe Dean would ditch him for a demon – a fucking _demon_! Hadn't he learned anything from Sam's mistake with Ruby? Okay, so Dean trusted that this thing was telling the truth. So what if it was? Dean had said it before – they didn't work with monsters, period. But here they were, with him sitting on the sidelines while Dean went hunting with Crowley, of all creatures. It was crazy. It was supposed to be him and Dean against the world, they were supposed to beat the Devil together. Unless… unless it was that Dean still didn't think they could pull it off. Sam was sure that Dean had faith in him, but he couldn't be sure Dean had total faith in _them_.

Just thinking about that and about Crowley getting sulfur all over his seat in the Impala made Sam grab another piece of furniture – a broken table – and smash it against the wall as well. He stormed through the house looking for new things to break – preferably glass, something that would shatter satisfyingly. He found the kitchen in no time flat and opened up grimy cabinet after grimy cabinet until he found a stash of filmy, warped glasses. He grabbed two at a time and threw them against the opposing wall, then kicked the cabinet in front of the sink. The wood was so rotted that his foot went right through it, his ankle twisted and he lost his balance for a moment and only managed to right himself just in time.

"Dammit!"

He pounded his fist on the counter top and one of the cabinets overhead swung open from the vibration it made. And that was when he saw it – a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and two expensive looking low ball glasses. A note on a fresh piece of paper was attached to one of them. Quickly, Sam grabbed it and read the neat scrawl, written in a brownish red ink that he hoped wasn't blood:

_Moose,_

_Knock yourself out. Literally._

_XOXO_

_Crowley_

Sam grabbed one of the glasses and smashed it against the wall. Now that felt satisfying – it was probably one of few of the finer things Crowley was able to escape from his home with as the demons were burning it down. He took care to smash the other one, flinging it against the wall with as much force as he could muster. With that, he grabbed the bottle of bourbon, unscrewed the lid, took a swig, and headed back to the living room where one unbroken chair and a low table were waiting for him by the fireplace.

By the time the bottle was a quarter of the way gone, Sam had hoped he would be in a better mood, but it wasn't working. He was calmer, for sure – he hadn't wanted to smash things for the past hour or so – but effects of the liquor seemed to be shifting his mood from furious to intensely contemplative. And his thoughts had taken him to a dark, but perhaps inevitable place.

It had started with fuming about how Dean had chosen a demon over him to go on this hunt. Yes, there wouldn't be a hunt without the demon's tip, but they should be going in together. Crowley must be playing at something if he wanted them separated. And Dean had to have known that too, but he was willing to take the risk. And why? Because he must not think that just the two of them could handle this on their own. But he was wrong. And Sam was going to prove it and make up for what he'd done to the world, and especially to Dean, even if it meant he had to possess Lucifer himself and shove them both into The Cage.

If he was going to be honest with himself, he'd been considering this idea somewhere in a dark corner of his mind for the past two weeks, ever since he'd heard Gabriel say that they could shove Lucifer back into The Cage, but it took for him to see Dean taking off with Crowley to finally allow himself to seriously entertain the idea. He hoped to God there was another way, but cramming Lucifer back into his box was impossible and everyone – him, Dean, Castiel, and Bobby – they all knew it. What were they going to do? Ask nicely? Slip him an angel-sized mickey and shove him in? He thought about what Azazel, Lilith, Ruby, and Lucifer had all said to him at some point: _It had to be you, Sam. It always had to be you._ He'd done some monstrous things and whether he was born with something dark inside him or he was molded to be that way didn't really matter once he'd murdered innocent people, including drinking an innocent woman to death while she watched, and let Lucifer out to walk the earth. If he died now, before they either won or lost this war, he thought about the Heaven that would wait for him, with Dean. He didn't deserve it. There was no washing his soul clean. So maybe, just maybe, he could be cleansed with fire. It would erase everything – the deaths he was responsible for, the times he'd been too weak to choose right over wrong, the things he'd done to make Dean lose faith in him.

Of course, he knew from experience that overcoming possession wouldn't be a cake walk. Sam had been possessed – actually possessed – three years before, by Meg. For almost a whole week, he'd tried and tried to break free, but it was like trying to break out of a prison cell by scratching his finger nails against cinder block walls. But he was stronger now than he was back then. He and Dean had been able to overcome War's hallucinations long enough to chop off his finger and get his ring. When he was overcome by Famine, feeling like a man possessed with nothing but raw hunger and need, one look at Dean was all it took for him to control his urges and defeat the Horseman. And, if Dean stood by him at his side, he felt certain he could do this as well.

The question was, how would he do it? Would it come out of him like a punch of emotion, like it did with Famine when he saw Dean, or was it a matter of disciplined and focused thought? Well, there was one person who knew. He whipped out his phone and punched in Bobby's number.

Bobby picked up after just two rings. "Hey son, how ya doin'?"

Sam had planned to keep the conversation short, but at hearing Bobby's concerned, caring tone he couldn't help himself: in the next twenty minutes he spilled the events of the night, talking and at times nearly crying, between sips of bourbon. As soon as he'd gotten to the part of the story where Crowley claimed he could get them Pestilence, he heard a screw-top bottle being loosened followed by a grunt and a sigh, but otherwise Bobby remained quiet as Sam told his story.

"And then," Sam sighed as he finished his story, "Dean just walks…" He scoffed and took another swig of his bourbon. "Right out the door with Crowley."

Bobby paused for a second and then when Sam remained silent, finally spoke. "Well, look, Sam, I got no love for demons, and, yeah, this whole thing is crazy, but...I don't know. After a year of chasing up zilch, maybe it's time to go crazy."

Sam scoffed again. "Yeah, maybe." He paused, carefully considering his next words. Even though Bobby was suggesting 'going crazy,' he knew the plan he was considering wasn't what Bobby would have in mind. "Hey, Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh…" He still didn't have a plan in mind as to how he was going to say this. Screw it; he went for broke. "Remember that time you were possessed?"

"Yeah. Rings a bell."

"When Meg told you to kill Dean, you didn't. You took your body back."

"Just long enough to shank myself, yeah."

"Well, how'd you do it? I mean, how'd you take back the wheel?"

"Why are you asking, Sam?"

Bobby's voice was concerned with just a touch of panicked and Sam took another swig of his bourbon to give him just a little more courage for what he was about to say next. "Say we can open the Cage. Great. But then what? W-we just lead the devil to the edge and get him to jump in?"

Bobby sighed. "You got me."

"What if you guys lead the devil to the edge…" he paused, "and I jump in?"

"Sam."

The concern and panic was back in Bobby's voice, but with an added warning edge as if to say, 'we ain't having this conversation'. Sam plowed ahead anyway – if he let it go now, it would be even harder to sell Bobby on this in the future.

"It'd be just like when you turned the knife around on yourself. One action – just one leap."

"Are you idjits trying to kill me?" Bobby screamed.

"Bobby -"

"We just got done talking your brother off the ledge, and now you're lining up to say 'yes'?"

"It's not like that! I'm not gonna do it. Not unless we all agree. But I think we got to look at our options."

"This isn't an option, Sam!"

"Why not?"

"You can't do it! What I did was a million-to-one, and that was some pissant demon I was brain-wrestling. You're talking about taking back control from Satan himself."

Sam felt a swell if indignation rise within him. Bobby was talking to him like he was some kid who didn't understand what he was lining up for. As if he hadn't considered this idea backwards and forwards before coming to him about it.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Kid…" Bobby lowed his volume and his voice took on a pleading tone. "It's called 'possession' for a reason. You, of all people, ought to know."

Sam shook his head. Yeah, he did know. Which was why he knew he could beat it this time. "I'm strong enough."

"You ain't. He's gonna find every chink in your armor, Sam, and use it against you – Your fear, your grief, your anger." Sam took another swig of his bottle as his mind raced through all the plentiful material Lucifer had at his disposal, at how much pain he was going to have to go through to do this – and that was before throwing himself down the Pit. "And let's face it," Bobby went on, "you're not exactly Mr. Anger management. How are you gonna control the Devil when you can't control yourself?"

Sam wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Bobby about all the revelations he'd had about himself and Dean, about how much stronger they were together, and all the thoughts he'd had within the last hour and a half since he'd picked up the whiskey bottle. But listening to Bobby's quiet but quickened breathing through the receiver, everything he wanted to say sounded weak and hokey. Instead, he felt himself choke up and hurriedly rushed off the phone. Sam settled into his chair, took another swig from the quickly depleting bottle, and sat alone with his thoughts, drinking and watching the night slowly fade into the dawn as he awaited the return of his brother and tried to piece together a strategy for having the same conversation with Dean.


End file.
